Jen's Labyrinth
by ArgentSimurgh
Summary: [Complete!] Jen stopped pacing and crumpled to the women's shelter floor, her tears mixing with Aiden's as she cradled her 3-month-old to her cheek, whispering into his downy hair, "I wish the Goblin King would take us both away." For the first time, an adult and mother has entered the Labyrinth and Jareth doesn't know how everything is about to change.
1. Protagonista, meet Adversary

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"

"I know, Aiden, Mommy's trying, please just calm down!" Jen shifted her 3-month-old son to the other shoulder in an effort to better shield his face from the drizzle. The line for the women's shelter was moving excruciatingly slow, bloated with those who only sought a room in bad weather, and no one was giving way for the young mother and infant. In fact, a couple of women, hardened by much more time on the street than Jen had logged in her scant month, were eyeing her and the wailing infant with disgust. It was so damn cruel, but Jen refused to cry since it wouldn't do her or Aiden any good if she appeared weak.

"Could someone please let me get under the awning at least?" she tilted her head to the side and gave her best 'I can't believe how rude you're being' look to them. A few shifted just enough to let her under the shelter. It was the minimum space required to get Aiden out of the cold rain. Jen gratefully kissed his face and cuddled him close, unzipping her hoodie to tuck him inside.

The renewal of warmth and lack of drips calmed the baby just enough to doze a little, exhausted from his crying jag. Jen tilted her head back with a mental thank-you to whatever powers were still paying attention. From the corner of her eye, she saw a large bird pass far overhead but the awning blocked her view before she could get a good look at it.

Around 40 minutes later, she had made it the last 10 feet from the awning into the door of St. Kilda's Women's Shelter. An ancient nun in an old-fashioned full habit spotted the baby tucked in Jen's hoodie and motioned her over.

"I have a very small private space you and the baby can have," the nun whispered, trying not to let the other women overhear.

"Oh gosh, thank you so much!" By this point, Jen had learned to be properly grateful and deferential as befitted the 'indigent'. So much of her dignity had fallen by the wayside these last several weeks...

The old nun just smiled knowingly and led them to a room with old, 1970's-era medical posters. Jen looked around doubtfully.

"We used to run a community clinic from this room back when we could get doctors to donate time. This little office in here has a cot," the nun explained, seeing Jen's confusion. She opened a second door to a tiny office just big enough for a small desk, rolling stool, and vinyl-covered cot with no pillows or blankets. There was just a 1-foot walkway between the desk and cot. The door only opened to a 90-degree angle before it was stopped by the foot of the cot. At the far end of the narrow room, a window to a fire escape and some yellowed posters showing children in bell-bottoms running across flowered fields with slogans like "good nutrition makes for sunny days" completed the inventory of the room.

"Let me find a couple of blankets," the nun riffled through some cupboards in the medical room and returned with a stack of 3 dusty blankets that obviously hadn't been disturbed in decades.

"It's perfect, thank you," Jen turned her eyes to the nun, trying to cover the inward despair she always felt at the end of another day trying to find work and/or a nicer shelter.

The nun whispered "God and Mother Mary bless you" over her shoulder as she softly glided from the exam room.

Jen locked the door after the nun and set her backpack on the stool beside the cot. The least-dusty blanket was spread, and Aiden laid atop it carefully so he didn't wake up. Then, she took off the wet hoodie and draped it across the desk to dry.

Next, she took stock of the exam room. Apart from a handful of expired band-aids and a box of glass slides, the room had obviously been empty for ages. What looked like a closet from the outside revealed itself to be a tiny powder room, just barely big enough for the sink and toilet within. The Americans with Disabilities Act had clearly come too late for any of these rooms. Still, it gave Jen a lift to know she had a private toilet for the first time in a month, away from the hard-eyed women in the shelter line.

Aiden was still sleeping, so she arranged the blankets on the cot and laid him down carefully so she could avail herself of the facilities. The 'hot' tap water came out just warm enough for her to use her sample bottle of shampoo+conditioner and wash her hair for the first time in 5 days. Refreshed, she left her waist-length hair unbound to dry and peeked in on Aiden, but he was out like a light, tiny hands in fists, and mouth open in a perfect little moue. Her heart simultaneously enlarged from love for him and broke for their current circumstances.

Jen carefully sat on the foot of the cot and put her feet up on the stool. The only luxury readily available to her was the library, and she had 3 paperbacks to choose from. 2 were by her favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors, but Jen set them aside for later, in case the third turned out to be a dud. The third book had the image of a maze on its front cover, the title "Labyrinth", and a gold seal declaring it the winner of an obscure fantasy award that Jen had never heard of. That seal was the only reason she'd picked it up. The book lacked a description on the back as well as an author's name to tell her if the book would be any good, but if it had won an award, then maybe it was worth the risk. Anything that kept her from reflecting on the wreckage her life had turned into would suffice, she reminded herself as she opened the small tome.

Only a few dozen pages in, just at the part where the Goblin King magically deposited the girl who'd foolishly wished away her spoiled baby step-brother at the entrance to his labyrinth, Aiden stirred. Jen hastily checked and then changed his dirty diaper, mentally thanking the food pantry that provided their supply, but he wasn't satisfied and began wailing again. She offered him first one breast and then the other, but he only nursed about 5 minutes at each before starting up again.

Jen groaned; yet another bout of colic seemed to be ramping up. As if listening to Aiden's cries, the drizzle outside also picked up to a pounding rain that drummed on the window. The clouds darkened into angry black writhing masses, blocking out the remaining twilight that had been providing her reading light. She watched the rain as she rocked side-to-side, burping and shushing Aiden, trying to think of a song to sing that might calm him.

 _Oh my love's like a red, red rose_

 _That's newly sprung in June -_

CRACK!

A deafening flash of lightning rended the sky outside, illuminating a white barn owl perched on the rail of the fire escape. The bird's head spun around like a top, as if feeling Jen's eyes on it, and it gazed unblinking at her for a long moment. Apparently satisfied with its assessment, the owl leaned forward and spread its wings as its feet released the rail, sailing away into the downpour. Jen realized she'd been holding her breath in awe of the proximity to a creature she'd only seen in books and a long-ago school trip to the zoo.

"Come on, love-bug," she murmured to her son, whose cries brought her back to the moment. "Give Mommy a break here."

Aiden was not about to give Mommy a break. He wailed on like a police siren.

With a groan, Jen dragged herself up and began walking circuits around the exam room, bouncing Aiden against her shoulder.

"So Mommy's reading this new book," she began talking in attempt to distract both of them since the aborted song hadn't gotten her anywhere, "and it's about this teenage girl who wishes for the Goblin King to take away her baby step-brother. And he does! And to get him back, the girl is supposed to solve the king's labyrinth in 13 hours or less. It seems like a good book. I can't wait to read what happens next."

The running monologue wasn't making a dent in the baby's cries, but Jen kept it up anyway just to have something else to listen to.

"That girl was pretty stupid. I mean, sure, she had a kinda mean step-mother and probably deserved a break from babysitting every weekend, but still, she had a home, and a family, and her own room, and books, and toys…" Jen didn't realize she was crying until her breath hitched in a sob. "I'm sorry I can't give you all that Aiden! Maybe I should have given you up, but I just can't live without you."

Jen stopped pacing and crumpled to the floor, her tears mixing with Aiden's as she cradled him to her cheek, whispering into his wisps of downy hair, "I wish the Goblin King would take us both away."

CRACK!

The nearest window swung open and the barn owl swooped in as the thunder rolled, circling the room before diving out of Jen's line of sight behind a lab table. Maniacal laugher from multiple high-pitched sources pealed out from the dark corners of the room.

Jen scrambled to her feet, eyes wide. Something brushed past her leg with a wicked giggle, and she gasped involuntarily. Aiden suddenly thrashed and she looked down into the yellow bug-eyes of a bald and blue-skinned goblin wearing Aiden's green romper.

Shrieking, she threw the thing away from her, watching as it landed at the feet of… someone… Starting with the shiny leather riding boots, Jen scanned the other person in the room from the bottom up. She noted the tight, black, shiny clothing surrounded by a flowing black cape with an out-of-control stand-up collar topped by an even more-out-of-control mane of white-blonde hair highlighted with a few streaks of bright colors. At last, she met the stranger's odd eyes set above mountain-high cheekbones and thin lips set in a smug expression.

"Where's my son?" Jen squeaked.

With a British-sounding accent, he crossed his arms and replied, "What's said is said."

"You can't be serious," she scrambled to her feet. "Are you supposed to be the Goblin King? Did you take him away?"

"You know very well where he is," he responded, tiny grin widening to show his teeth, like a cat that isn't about to let go of the live bird in its claws. His demeanor hinted that he was waiting for the conversation to run its inevitable course.

"Then why did you leave me here?" she demanded.

"You?" He raised a thin eyebrow as if genuinely perplexed by her question.

"Yes, I wished for -both- of us to be taken away," Jen had already decided that she was experiencing a mental breakdown, but she was damned if she was going to allow the hallucination to separate her from her son. Maybe if she worked with it, she'd find her way back to reality, or at least Aiden.

The Goblin King paused, "Oh, did you? Hadn't you read my book? I only take babies, not girls."

"I ain't a girl! I'm 23 and I'm his mother!" the man's smug expression changed to a frown as Jen planted her fists on her hips. "You can't keep him away from me: I'm nursing!"

The frown deepened as the Goblin King stepped toward Jen and leaned over her, "Then you'd better walk. He's there in my castle…"

Jen turned to look where he pointed and saw a castle far away at the center of a gigantic maze. The St. Kilda's exam room had dissolved and left them on a windswept hill overlooking the Labyrinth. A high stone wall surrounded a stone and hedge maze, with a forest, city, and castle close to the center. It was so overwhelmingly vast.

"Turn back before it's too late," his voice held just a hint of uncertainty, as if his recitation of the usual script had been seriously disrupted.

"No," Jen growled at him. "13 hours, I presume?"

"Indeed," the Goblin King's face was solemn, one eyebrow cocked.

"If Aiden needs to nurse, bring him to me. I don't care if it cuts into my time," she turned her back on the King and marched down the hill toward the high, brick, outer wall. She didn't look back to prevent him from seeing her lip tremble in fear, so she didn't see that he stood there for several moments, eyebrows knitted together.

For centuries, the challengers in Jareth's labyrinth had all been uncaring parents and spoiled siblings, especially step-siblings. The former seldom even bothered to set foot in the labyrinth since they were ridding themselves of unwanted offspring (most often step-offspring) and the latter almost always gave up before getting halfway; in centuries, only a handful of challengers had ever finished. For the first time ever, someone had wished not just a child but her own self away as well.

And why on Earth had she made -that- particular wish? He reviewed what little he knew of her. He had seen the pair walking from the library where she'd acquired the book, standing in an excruciatingly slow line in the rain, and then moving inside a building. Each time, she cradled her child like a loving mother, but in his not-insignificant experience it was a rule that loving mothers didn't wish their children away. Being young and pretty, her 5-foot-5 figure was lean despite motherhood, yet ample in bosom from breastfeeding. Her clothing was shabby and baggy, but no different from the others in that line. It was precious little to go on, which made him uneasy. Usually, there was more time between a challenger's acquisition of the book and making the wish. Usually, he had more opportunity to get a sense of their dreams and weaknesses, to be used as fodder for the tasks they would face.

This challenger, he concluded, would have to be watched more closely than usual. Rolling a small crystal ball around his hand, Jareth vanished.

 **Author's note:** this is my first Labyrinth fic, so please be gentle ;) I wasn't able to find a beta, so feel free to PM me any suggestions, including ideas for making Jen's trip through the Labyrinth more eventful.


	2. Walking on Walls

**Author's note:** Now I know why all the other writers comment about loving the reviews and likes: they're addictive like heroin! If you like the story, please review. If you have suggestions/ideas, PM me :) Updates will be happening every weekend until I've got the whole tale out of my system. Thanks bunches!

Jen approached the high and forbidding outer wall of the labyrinth. Delicate vines grew out of the dusty earth here and there, and tiny winged fairies darted away as she tried to look at them closer. Walking along the unbroken line of the wall searching for an entry, she noticed what could only be classified as a gnome or dwarf with white hair and shirt, brown vest and shorts using an old-fashioned hand-pumped sprayer on the fairies, which dropped to the ground.

"Hey!" she jogged over and grabbed his shoulder. "Why're you spraying the fairies!"

"They're pests, that's what!" he grumped, shrugging off her hand. "They bites an' they're eatin' my roses!"

Jen looked at the rosebush and noticed several white blooms with bites taken out of them. She decided that comprehension was probably not happening right now, and moved on. "Ok… well, how do I get in the labyrinth? There don't seem to be any doors."

The gnome-dwarf looked at her sharply, and then dramatically pointed at the wall behind Jen.

"Ya gets in... there!" a massive double door had appeared in the otherwise blank wall and was opening slowly outward.

"Thank you, Mister…?" Jen turned back to the gnome-dwarf before stepping forward.

"Hoggle."

"Jen O'Brien," she nodded at him. "Thanks, Hoggle."

"Don't thank -me-! -I- wouldn't go in there."

Jen paused and eyed him, "Why not?"

"Even if ya reach the center, you'll never get out again," he explained. "And ya can't take anything for granted."

"Well, I still have to go. Thanks again." Jen stepped through the doors and into a long, damp corridor of brown brick that stretched to the right and left as far as her eyes could see. There appeared to be no openings or turns.

"Huh," was all she said as she turned left and began walking. She had read an historical novel once where the protagonist had to solve a maze, and to do so he kept making left-hand turns. Since both paths appeared equal, she decided to go with that plan for now. Absently, she pulled an elastic from a pocket and pulled her damp hair back into a long ponytail to keep it off her face.

After about 10 minutes of brisk walking, there were still no turns. Jen paused to examine some moss with human-like eyes on stalks that seemed to be watching her.

"Ain't you neat?" she whispered to it, gently running a finger up the stalk to feel the moss' soft texture. The stalk quivered for a moment and the eye blinked as if surprised to have enjoyed her touch.

Jen gave it a half-smile before returned to her walk, idly trailing her right hand along the inner wall of the corridor.

10 minutes later, her hand lost contact with the wall. Jen paused and examined it. The wall appeared to be intact, but her hand was passing through it!

"Invisible doors?" she mused out loud, then shrugged. "Whatever."

Holding out both hands, she felt for the dimensions of the opening and stepped through.

Jareth snorted at his crystal ball. Jen hadn't seemed bothered by the seemingly unending corridor that most challengers found frustrating and daunting. She hadn't even encountered the mouse-sized blue worm and his time-consuming offers of tea with the missus. She appeared to accept everything far too calmly. He would have to find a way to ruffle her feathers...

Now Jen found herself in a proper maze of cream-colored limestone walls with turns and openings. Left-turn strategy forgotten, she simply wandered toward the castle, going on intuition.

At the same time a loud gong chimed once from somewhere far away, she hit her 4th dead end. She turned back to try a different path, but the corridor behind her had also turned into a dead end. Confused, she looked back toward the other dead end, and gasped to see two shields with heads, arms, and feet at their tops and bottoms standing in a pair of doors.

"What…?" she tilted her head to the side. The figures looked like human-dog hybrids pulled off of some opium-induced playing cards.

"That's what we'd like to know! Bwah-hah-hah-hah!" the bottom-left figure called and all four of the heads guffawed.

"But…" Jen tried to get some words out through her confusion. "The labyrinth changes?"

"That's right!" the bottom right figure confirmed. "It's not supposed to be fair."

The others chuckled their agreement.

"Then how do I solve it?"

"Try one of these doors!" bottom-left suggested.

"Aye!" bottom right nodded. "One of them leads to the castle, and the other one leads to…"

"Ba-ba-ba-bum!" from bottom left.

"Certain death!" bottom right concluded.

All four "Oooooooh'ed" in unison.

"But which is which?" Jen's forehead wrinkled.

"You can only ask one of us!" top-right gestured with his head at top-left.

"And keep in mind, one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies!" top-left chimed in.

"You liar!" top-right cried and the four dissolved into laughs again.

"One question to the tops, and one of you lies," Jen stated to four eager nods. "Okay," she paced back and forth a couple of times, pondering. She couldn't ask the bottoms at all. If she asked either top and he lied, it would be useless. But…

She turned suddenly on top-right, who gulped. "Would he say that your door leads to the castle?"

Top right ducked behind his shield to consult with his lower counterpart. "No..."

"Then this is my door," she stared at it thoughtfully.

"How can you be so sure?" top-left was flummoxed.

"It don't matter which of you's lying," she explained. "Whatever you said, the opposite's true."

"Oh!" the four seemed awed by Jen's logic. The right-hand shield scuffled out of the way.

She nodded at them, stepped through the door, and fell down the square hole on the other side with a piercing scream. The four shield creatures laughed long and loud behind her.

Jen descended through what felt like branches that slowed her fall. By the time she'd paused screaming to draw breath, the branches had brought her to a complete standstill.

That's when she noticed they weren't branches at all but hundreds of pairs of hands protruding from the walls of a stone shaft, and they were holding her up. Jen tried not to be nauseous as she thought of other hands from her past.

"Uh," she gasped. "What's happening?"

"We're the helping hands!" a group of hands formed into the gestalt of a face, which spoke and then dispersed.

"Really?" Jen was barely holding back her panic against falling.

"That's right!" a different group formed another face.

Yet a third group-face added, "Now you have to choose!"

"Ch-ch-ch-choose?" she stuttered, the panic threatening to break free into screams and tears.

"Up or down?" the fourth face asked.

"UP!" she shouted, not even pausing to consider.

"Up! Up! She chose up!" she heard voices up and down the shaft calling as the hands passed her off to higher-up hands, and she arose swiftly toward the square of light through which she had fallen.

Once her body had passed the horizon of the hole, it closed up beneath her back-side like a trapdoor. She rolled off the spot to her front, and nearly went off the 20-foot-high ledge that she had NOT been anywhere near before falling down the hands' tube.

"EEEK!" Jen screamed before burying her face in her arms and holding as still as possible. It took all her concentration to prevent her whimpers from breaking into uncontrolled, fearful weeping. A few tears still managed to escape.

She didn't know how long she laid there, but it had to have been at least a half-hour before her ears stopped ringing and she was in something approaching control of her acrophobia-induced vertigo. At least, enough to open her hands and feel around to determine where edges of the ledge were; her eyes remained closed and her forehead pressed to the stone surface upon which she was prostrated. The ledge that she'd almost rolled off was right under her right shoulder, and felt like it was roughly parallel to her body. Her left arm went all the way straight before encountering another edge.

Jen had just decided she must be lying on top of a wall or something when she heard a bird call, "Woo-wah-WOO!" unlike any normal bird from her world. With effort, she lifted her head and opened one eye to see a flamboyant magenta bird with a spray of purple plumes sticking out of its head in each direction. It was the size of a cocker spaniel and sitting several yards ahead of her on the branch of a tree growing close to the right-hand side of the wall. Jen glanced below the bird and saw a trio of goblin guards in armor sitting against the tree snoring away, helms and spears at their sides.

The bird looked right at her and opened its beak to call again.

"No! Shhhh!" Jen urged it to be quiet.

"Woo-wah-WOO!" the bird defiantly called. The guards' snoring stopped for a long moment (as did Jen's breathing) before at last resuming.

Jen glared at the bird, which ruffled its feathers at her.

"Be quiet!" she whispered.

The bird shook its tail and opened its beak again.

"No!" Jen exhaled as she scrambled to her knees.

The bird stopped and cocked its head at her, then opened its beak once more.

"Shut up!" she was getting furious, crawling on all fours toward it.

The bird turned around on its branch, eyeing her warily, but again opened its beak to call.

"Don't you dare!" she pushed up to her feet and crouch-walked toward the bird, waving her arms to scare it off.

The bird's head jerked back and it took off, flying lazily away. To Jen's eyes, the backward glance it shot her before vanishing in the glare of the sun appeared calculating.

Jen looked down at the goblins, but they were still fast asleep. Suddenly, she was aware of being 20 feet off the ground and the vertigo hit her again. She dropped to a crouch, hands on the wall and eyes squeezed shut. This time, it passed in mere seconds, and she was able to look up and around. Behind her, the high outer wall of the labyrinth was much further off than she'd thought. She was halfway between it and the hedge section ahead and willing to bet that she'd get there even faster if she stayed atop the wall.

With a determined frown, Jen rose to her feet again and slowly walked along the wall, keeping her eyes on the section just ahead and away from the edges to either side. As she went, the gong sounded the 2nd and 3rd hours gone. She made dozens of turns, but maintained a steady progress in the direction of the castle until the stone walls sloped down to only 10 feet in height and the hedge maze took over.

Obviously she couldn't walk on the hedges, so Jen dared to look down and spied a barrel standing on end right next to the wall. Very slowly and carefully lest the vertigo hit without warning, she lowered first her legs and then her body over the side of the wall, dangling by her fingers before her toes found the barrel. Moments later, she was back on the ground, breathing deeply in gratitude for being there.

Whereas the cream-colored stone walls behind her had reflected the light, the passage forward between the leaves ahead was darker and more forbidding. Suppressing a shiver, Jen took a steadying breath and walked on.


	3. Song and Beast

**Author's Note:** keep in mind... the movie was a musical...

The Goblin King lowered his crystal, trying to decide what should be the next challenge for Jen. He glanced over at the group of goblins dancing around the baby. Little Aiden was only somewhat entertained; he kept smacking his lips and trying to gnaw on his own hands.

Jareth decided to indulge in a bit of music to delay having to bring the baby to his mother for nursing. He whisked the child up from the circle of goblins, earning a delighted coo, and struck up his favorite jazzy piece for entertaining babies.

 _I saw my baby crying hard as babe could cry_

 _What could I do?_

 _My baby's love had gone and left my baby blue_

 _Nobody knew_

 _What kind of magic spell to use?_

By the end of the first line, all the goblins were up and dancing around the king, who passed the baby around among them as he sang on.

As the song concluded, a bit of inspiration struck. Jareth spoke to a particular quartet of armed and armored goblins before collecting Aiden and swinging the baby up in the air.

ooooooo

ooooooo

"So, Jen," the Goblin King's voice purred from behind her. "How are you enjoying my labyrinth?

She spun around to find him standing in the hedge-lined quadrangle behind her, Aiden in his arms.

"Aiden!" her face lit up as she snatched him from Jareth and the baby smiled before sticking a fist in his mouth and sucking on it ravenously. "Meal time, huh?" she glanced at Jareth as she shifted the baby to one arm and started unbuttoning her flannel shirt with the other.

"Indeed," Jareth turned and stalked over to the side of the quad, making a great show of examining the pink blooms on a rosebush there.

Aiden happily latched on. She examined him carefully but found no sign of maltreatment, not even a spot of dirt on his romper. Taking a deep breath of relief, she simply enjoyed holding him and marveled at his miniature perfection. After a few moments, without her being fully aware of it, she started humming and then singing to herself and the baby.

 _Come by the hills to the land where legend remains_

 _Where the stories of old fill our hearts and may yet come again_

 _Where the past has been lost but the future is still to be won_

 _Oh the cares of tomorrow can wait 'til this day is done_

Jareth ignored the humming, but when Jen's mouth opened and an old folk song came out in a fine soprano voice, he raised an eyebrow and gazed on the scene. Jen was not only singing with her eyes closed, but swaying in time with her baby at breast, almost but not quite dancing. With her free hand, she pulled the elastic out of her hair and fluffed it out; in the warm sunlight, subtle highlights of color showed up. She seemed so free of concern and engrossed in the moment that it almost felt too intimate for Jareth to witness. Almost.

She sang the song twice through before shouldering the baby for burping, pulling her bra in place but not buttoning the shirt yet. Patting his backside gently, she kissed Aiden's head over and over. Once a burp emerged, she offered him the other breast, and began another song, this time a lullaby.

 _Over in Killarney_  
 _Many years ago,_  
 _My mother sang a song to me_  
 _In tones so sweet and low._  
 _Just a simple little ditty,_  
 _In her good old Irish way,_  
 _And l'd give the world if she could sing_  
 _That song to me this day._

There were no other -good- singers in the labyrinth besides the king: goblins, dwarves, and the rest were not known to have any musical talent despite their preponderance of enthusiasm. Fairies were adequate but so high pitched they quickly wore out listeners' ears. As a result, Jareth hadn't heard a decent soprano in decades if not centuries. But this woman's voice was clear and lovely, evoking the love and longing in her songs quite like magic. No wonder the baby gazed at her with such adoration as she fed him. Jareth even noticed a few fairies and goblins creeping out of the nearby foliage to listen in awe.

What would it be like if she were singing to -me-? A tiny voice in the back of his mind asked before retreating into a dark recess where long-avoided topics were banished.

The castle gong sounded that 4 hours had passed.

Jareth blinked as Jen suddenly stepped toward him, breaking into his abstraction. The feeding and burping was over, so she gently set a now-sleepy Aiden in his arms with a wistful sigh.

"Back to business," she muttered, eyes fluttering up to Jareth's briefly.

"You never answered my question," Jareth recaptured her eyes, trying to scry some clue as to her nature.

"It's… hard, but cool," she murmured with a blush and a shy smile. "Thanks for taking good care of him." Jen dropped one last kiss on her son's forehead, then turned and resumed walking among the hedged section of the maze, plaiting her hair into a single braid as she walked.

Jareth was again left standing, this time with the drowsy baby. No challenger, in the entire history of the labyrinth, had ever thanked him for anything, much less how he looked after the children. Most seemed to assume that the minors left in his care were locked up and ignored if not turned into goblins immediately. Somehow, this one had perceived that Jareth was not only guarding the child, but actually caring for him, and been gracious about it. If there was one thing Jareth was unaccustomed to, besides good singers and thanks, it was the idea of anyone being gracious to him. He faded back to his castle to lay the baby down for a nap and to brood. What on Earth did "cool" mean?

ooooooo

ooooooo

Jen's cheeks were still flushed 10 minutes later. What an idiot! The Goblin King and captor of her son was standing right there and she'd been all but singing and dancing with her boobs out! No wonder he hadn't even bothered to taunt her: she'd made a fool of herself all on her own.

"RRRRRAAAAAWWWRRRRR!"

The roar of a huge, angry creature stopped Jen dead in her tracks, and nearly cost her control of her bladder. Somewhere nearby was some kind of huge beast!

She stood up on tiptoes to try and see over the hedges, but they were too high. Carefully peering around a corner, she saw a gigantic red-furred and horned beast tied upside down and being poked by 2 armored goblins.

"RRRRAAAAWWWRR!" it roared again.

"We got you now, fuzzball!" one of the armored goblins poked at the beast with a small but enormous-toothed goblin on a pole, which bit into its hide. A 3rd and 4th goblin ran up from the opposite direction and the 4 laughed wickedly as they taunted and poked the helpless red giant.

The injustice of the situation infuriated her.

Without thinking, Jen charged, jumped up and kicked the nearest goblin squarely in the back of the helmet. It tumbled forward and knocked down the next 2 like so many bowling pins.

"Hey!" the 4th goblin came at her with his fangy-goblin-on-a-stick.

Jen dodged the fangs, grabbed the pole with one hand and punched the goblin's unarmored forearm with the other.

"Ow! Retreat!" the goblin released the stick to Jen's grasp and ran away, clutching his arm to his chest. The other 3 picked themselves up and ran as well.

Jen tossed the pole over the nearest hedge and stepped forward to inspect the big red beast.

"YAAAARRRR!" it shook its massive, horned head at her.

"Whoa! Shhhhhh, steady!" she tried to soothe it. "Don't you want down?"

"Ludo… down?"

"Yeah," Jen's eyes followed the rope around Ludo's hands and feet up to a pulley and down to a winch. She quickly released the winch and Ludo dropped to the ground with an audible thump.

"OW!" he protested.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Jen began pulling the ropes away.

Ludo stood up and looked at her expectantly.

"Um, I'm Jen," she said.

"Jen.. fwend?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I'll be your friend," Jen smiled and stroked his cheek. The giant looked like a cross between an orangutan and an ox with his reddish-orange shaggy fur and forward-curling horns.

"Fwend!" Ludo threw his disproportionately long arms around her.

"Can't… breathe!" Jen choked, slapping his shoulder insistently with her hand.

"Sawwy," he released her before tilting his head to one side. "Jen fight?"

"Yeah," Jen straightened. "Dated a black belt back in high school. He taught me kicking and punching." Her smile faded.

"Ahhh…" the giant nodded affably.

"D'you know how to get to the castle?" she asked, hoping against hope.

"Uh… nuh-uh," Ludo shook his shaggy head and looked at the ground.

She sighed, "Figures. Well, you wanna come with? It'd be great to have a friend."

Ludo's mouth opened in a huge, toothy grin, "Yeah, yeah! Jen fwend!"

Jen smiled and gestured at the castle, "Let's go then!"

ooooooo

ooooooo

Jareth swirled 3 crystal balls in his hand with a 4th on top and the 4 goblins who had retreated from Jen's attack tipped headfirst into the Bog of Eternal Stench. They had failed to drive the red beast at Jen to scare her off of the right path and had instead captured it, practically begging her protective instincts to drive her to intervene. They should be thankful he hadn't executed them outright!

"Next time, do as you're told!" Jareth sneered before using his other hand to merge the 4 crystals into 1. This he rolled around his palm and was about to vanish back to his castle when another idea to slow down Jen occurred to him, with the added bonus of getting information out of her. Grinning wickedly, he rolled the sphere the other way.

ooooooo

ooooooo

"It's very rude to stare!" the left door-knocker, shaped like the head of a goblin with the knocking ring through his ears, shouted.

Jen jumped. It hadn't occurred to her that the 2 knockers might be sentient, although after the shield-creatures with their 2 doors, she supposed it ought not to have come as a shock.

"I'm… sorry?"

"Mphag aphi dafp pasigo ihskd," the right knocker tried to say around the knocking ring in his mouth.

"Um…" Jen shared a glance with an equally perplexed Ludo. It was clear that she ought to choose one door to go through, but which?

She walked over to the one on the right with the ring in his mouth and pulled it out.

"Oh, mm, oh, it is so good to get that thing out of my mouth!" he grinned toothlessly. "Thank you!"

"No problem," Jen smiled back. "Which door leads to the castle?"

"Huh? What are you saying?" the left knocker called.

"I'm just about to tell the challenger we don't know where the doors go - we're just the knockers!" right knocker replied.

"Mumble, mumble," left knocker grouched.

"He's deaf as a post!" right knocker told Jen.

"So I see," Jen replied before turning to Ludo. "Looks like we just pick and see where we wind up."

"Mmmm," Ludo nodded.

"Well, I'd hate to force this back in your mouth," she told the right knocker. "So I guess I'll take the other door."

"Knock and the door will open!" the right knocker intoned.

Jen set the ring on the ground and walked over to the left door, rapping the ring firmly.

"Hey! Someone picked -me- for a change!" the knocker happily cried as Jen and Ludo passed through his portal.

ooooooo

ooooooo

"On a scale of 'huh' to 'what the fuck', this is at least a 'weird.'"

Jen and Ludo were standing side by side with their heads each tilted to the right, looking at a series of paintings hanging in slight indents on the stone walls of a high-ceilinged chamber. The door had slammed shut and melted into the wall the instant they'd both stepped in, and, adding insult to injury, the gong had sounded 5 times immediately afterward.

"Mm-hm," Ludo shook his head in agreement.

The first painting showed a picture of Jen holding Aiden, sitting on the floor of the shelter with the Goblin King standing over her, her expression horrified and his smug. The next showed Jen walking down the hill toward the labyrinth. The point of view was centered on Jen's frown, but she could see the king's expression over her shoulder and decided he looked less smug than thoughtful. A third painting showed her touching the eye-moss. The next two made her a little uncomfortable: the fourth showed her in the helping hands tube, screaming, and the fifth showed her lying face-down on top of the wall. The next showed her singing and nursing Aiden, with the Goblin King again over her shoulder and staring at her oddly; her face flushed once more with remembered embarrassment. The last on this wall showed her and Ludo before the doors with the talking knockers.

The next wall showed several different scenes, none of which featured Jen. She was grateful for that. One showed a nasty-looking swamp with a quartet of goblins sitting in a pool of green, filthy water. Another showed a dense forest in which a couple of orange-pink creatures seemed to be frolicking. A third showed a decadent party scene, with people in old-fashioned ball gowns, waistcoats, and masks dancing. The next showed a junkyard. The fifth showed a gingerbread and candy cottage with a tiny column of smoke curling up from the chimney. Next appeared a ramshackle town in which goblins were going about their daily lives, which mainly seemed to be harassing chickens and drinking.

The third and fourth walls were blank. There were no doors, no ladders, no shafts (Jen shuddered to think of the floor falling away from under her again)... and no obvious means of egress.

Jen completed her circuit and came back to the paintings featuring her adventure thus far. Then, she turned her back on those, particularly the ones where the king was staring at her, and went back to the non-Jen pictures.

"Whaddaya think, Ludo?"

"Huh," Ludo shrugged, clearly no more enlightened about this situation than Jen.

"Me too," she scratched the back of her neck and then looked across the second wall of paintings again. "Well, if those over there are where we've - I've - been, then these must be where I'm - we're - going…."

"Mmm?" Ludo raised his enormous eyebrows in hope.

"Yeah," Jen tried to pry the frame of the forest painting forward to look behind it, but it was stuck tight to the wall. It didn't budge an inch no matter how hard she tried to move it.

"Great," she sighed. "There's gotta be a way out; we just ain't seeing it."

Ludo mutely nodded. Jen decided he was a beast of few words, but probably not stupid.

Over the next hour or so, Jen walked from picture to picture, slowly scanning each from top to bottom. She strained her eyes trying to see if there were any details that could reveal an exit.

"Ludo, look at this," she pointed to the gingerbread cottage. "The smoke was going straight up before, now it's moving that way like there's wind."

Her fingertip brushed the surface of the painting, and smoke poured out into the enclosed chamber, causing both Jen and Ludo to choke and cough.

"Smell bad!" Ludo hacked.

Jen stumbled through the smoke trying to reach him, but her foot snagged on an unseen impediment and she fell flat on her face.

 **Author's PS:** Let me know what you think! Reviews = love ;) You can listen to _Come by the Hills_ and _Irish Lullaby_ on YouTube!


	4. Jen's Tale

"Oh, my poor dear! Have you hurt yourself?" Jen rolled over onto her back and looked up into the eyes of a thin old lady with brown and silver ringlets in a green gown with a white ruff collar and cuffs. All this plus a pair of square-rimmed spectacles made her look so much like the cover of an old Mother Goose book that that's what Jen mentally christened her.

"Um…" Jen paused to take stock of the situation. She was lying on the floor of the gingerbread cottage, her right ankle throbbed, and Ludo was nowhere to be seen. "Yeah, my ankle hurts…"

"Ah, allow me!" Mother Goose ran cool hands over Jen's ankle, feeling for breaks. Jen winced a couple of times and squeezed her eyes and teeth together to keep from making a sound.

Click!

Jen looked down to behold a thin golden shackle around her suddenly-healed ankle. A thin but magically strong gold chain ran from the shackle to Mother Goose's hands to a ring set in the wall.

"Hahaha!" Mother Goose cackled. "I've been waiting for years to get some help! You'll do quite well!"

"No, I won't!" Jen scrambled to her feet, towering above the bent-backed old woman. "I've got less than 8 hours to get to the castle and save my son!"

"Oh, so you're a challenger, are you?" Mother Goose's smile became a wicked grin. "You can't have wanted the child that much if you wished him away!"

"I didn't wish -him- away, I wished us -both- away!" Jen was furious at the presumption (again) that she was trying to get rid of Aiden.

"Well, what did you go and do a silly thing like that for, dear?" Mother Goose planted her hands on her hips and gazed with steely eyes at Jen, although her elevated eyebrows hinted at true surprise.

"Well... because…" Jen sputtered, "Wait, I don't have to explain myself to you!"

"As you like, child, but in the meantime I'll have you sweep the floor!" Mother Goose tutted and thrust a nearby broom into her hands. "And before you think of it, you'll be able to do no harm to me as long as that piece of jewelry is on your ankle."

"Fine," Jen gripped the broom handle with her enraged thoughts all over her face. She decided to seize the opportunity to both explore the cottage and buy time to figure out her escape. As she worked, Jen noticed a few fairies, dressed in leaves so Jen assumed a different type than the rose- and people-biting kind, zip into the cottage and converse briefly in an unknown language with Mother Goose. The latter, when not conversing, seemed to be occupied with sorting through scores of glass jars filled with herbs. Drying herbs hung in bunches from every rafter. Apart from the tiny bed in one corner with a small side table and a trunk for clothing, the cottage seemed to be almost entirely kitchen. Jen was relieved to note that the oven was definitely not person-sized, as memories of reading Hansel and Gretel ran across her mind.

Jen tried to avoid becoming depressed by her captive situation through focusing on being angry. Being angry at herself for her wish, angry at Mother Goose for capturing her, and most of all angry at the tall, skinny, over-dressed Goblin King for kidnapping Aiden and forcing her to solve his stupid, impossible Labyrinth to get him back.

The gong signaled that she was down to 7 hours by the time Jen finished sweeping the floor, scrubbing gingerbread pans, and wiping down the table. There was no sign of a key, a hacksaw, or even a big knife to help get rid of the gilded restraint on her ankle. She angrily threw the detritus she'd wiped from the table out an open window.

"Nicely done, dear, now let us have a cuppa tea," Mother Goose set the table with delicate China teacups and saucers plus a plate with a thick slice of bread topped with cheese.

Wearied from taking out her frustration on the chores, Jen plopped down on a stool and dipped a corner of her bread and cheese in her tea before eagerly cramming it into her mouth. It tasted like artisanal bread full of whole grains, and she hummed in appreciation.

Mother Goose sat daintily upon the stool on the other side of the table with her own tea and bread, "Thank you for all your hard work, my dear. I would never have gotten those pans clean by myself - you have wonderful strong hands!"

Jen looked at the old woman's wrinkled hands, "Oh, it was nothing."

"The fairies tell me you're a fine singer!"

Jen blushed, "Well, I do alright."

"Won't you sing me a ditty, then, love?"

Mother Goose looked so eager that Jen nodded and tapped her chin as she thought of a tune. The drying bunches of herbs over her head inspired her song choice.

 _O the summer time has come_

 _And the trees are sweetly blooming_

 _And the wild mountain thyme_

 _Grows along the purple heather._

 _Will you go, lassie, go?_

The elderly lady leaned back on her stool and smiled widely as Jen sang, clapping her hands at the end of the tune. "Well done, my dear, well done! A lovely voice indeed!"

Jen ducked her head and mumbled, "Thanks! It... helps me sing Aiden to sleep."

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you wish yourself away with the child? I've never heard of it done."

Jen took a deep breath and rested her arms on the table, "I dunno. No, I do, I just…" she glanced up at Mother Goose, who seemed to have genuine concern in her eyes, and decided she may as well talk since she wasn't getting anywhere fast.

"We're homeless," she sighed, turning her teacup around and around in her hands. "I lost my job, and Aiden's daddy isn't in the picture, so we don't have anywhere to live except shelters."

"But what about your family, love? Surely they wouldn't turn out a young mother in need?"

Jen scoffed, "Yeah, they would. Mom's been dead for five years, Dad's drunk and living on disability in an asbestos-ridden trailer in another state, and my only uncle… well... let's just say I wasn't safe in his vicinity since even before I hit puberty." She shoved the bread and cheese in her mouth and chewed a bite-full of it harshly, keeping her eyes on her tea.

Mother Goose's mouth formed a horrified O, "Good heavens! How dreadful! I can't imagine how hard life must have been for you."

"Yeah, well, that's life. Nobody promised it'd be fair, did they?" Jen sipped her first-ever cup of tea, finding it much easier to drink than the left-behind coffees she'd picked up at train stations the last several weeks.

"Indeed…" the old woman tapped absently on her teacup, frowning deeply. "Where did Aiden's father go, I wonder?"

"Back to France?" Jen shrugged. "Michel was a guitarist in a band from 'across the pond' as they say. It was a one-night stand after a concert in a bar where I worked. I never had any way of telling him about Aiden. I don't even know Michel's last name."

"You worked in a what, dear?" Mother Goose leaned in curiously.

"A bar… I suppose you'd call it a pub or tavern," Jen clarified, reaching for the last remaining hunk of bread and cheese on her plate.

"That's no fitting place for a young mother to work!" Mother Goose looked indignant.

"That's about what the manager said when I couldn't hide the baby bump anymore," Jen dunked the bread in her tea and began nibbling. "I've hardly had a job since then… no one'll hire you when you'll have to take time off to give birth."

"What a cruel world you come from!" the older woman frowned. "It's no wonder you wanted to come Underground."

"Underground?" Jen tilted her head to one side. "It don't look like we're underground."

"That's what this world has been called for some years now."

"What else was it called?"

"Oh, Fairy-land, Hy-Brasil, Tir-nan-Og… and many other things besides," Mother Goose nodded sagely.

Jen gulped, "I thought Tir-nan-Og was the Celtic afterlife… the ghosts of the dead aren't around here are they?"

"No, dear, not at all!" Mother Goose quickly reassured her. "Tir-nan-Og is merely a different kingdom in the Underground. The afterlife is a different realm altogether and further from this world than yours."

"So… this is Fairy-land?" Jen let out her breath.

"One part of it, yes," Mother Goose refilled Jen's teacup from her porcelain pot. "The Labyrinth and the Goblin City, along with some other territories, are part of King Jareth's realm. "

"Oh, is that his name?" Jen blinked, "I didn't know… I hadn't read that far in the book."

"Mmm… drink up my dear," Mother Goose arose and rummaged around in a cupboard.

"What's he like… when he's not kidnapping kids and running people through his labyrinth?" Jen was glad Mother Goose's back was turned as she didn't quite want to meet the old lady's eyes. She furrowed her brow at her teacup instead, and so missed her hostess' slight pause before resuming her rummaging.

"Oh, I'm quite fond of Jareth really," the older woman said. "He doesn't exactly kidnap, you know; he's obligated by his office to take the wished-away children. The distinction is somewhat narrow, but important."

"But if the person didn't –mean- to wish the child away... isn't that kidnapping?" Jen pressed. She'd spent the last hour stewing over this and she wanted some answers.

"If there is even the slightest amount of intent behind the words, the magic works and Jareth will come. Should the wisher decides they 'didn't mean it', then they have the opportunity to prove it by solving the labyrinth," Mother Goose matter-of-factly explained. "To return to your question, though, Jareth is witty, proud, musical, and sometimes stern, but I think the last is just because he's a tad lonely."

Jen sputtered into her teacup, "Lonely?!"

"Aye, dearie, ruling over goblins is not easy for one with many more talents than just herding chickens," Mother Goose returned to the table with a plate full of a variety of delicious-looking cookies. "...and his pride has not endeared him to many."

"What did you mean, you never heard of it done before?" Jen decided to steer the conversation to topics that made her feel less… flustered.

"No one has ever wished -themselves- away along with a child," Mother Goose set the plate of cookies between them. "Always, the wisher has wanted to get rid of the wee one."

"What happens to the kids that are wished away?" despite having seen that Aiden was clearly well taken care of, Jen's anxiety at the separation came forcefully to mind.

"That's a great secret, now eat up," the older woman pointed at the plate.

"Thanks, but why's it a secret?" Jen chomped down happily on a snickerdoodle cookie that was so heavenly it nearly melted in her mouth.

"I can't say, except that the King has decreed it so," Mother Goose tilted her head back, examining Jen carefully.

Under the woman's weighty gaze, Jen tried to slow down her bites, but the cookies were -so- tasty!

"May I say that despite your lack of permanent employment, you seem a good and industrious young woman?"

"Mm… thanks?" Jen tried to pause eating long enough to answer without a full mouth.

Mother Goose nodded as if she had decided something, "Yes, and as my cottage is my own little realm of a sort, I believe I shall release you to continue your journey through the Labyrinth."

Jen choked on the last bite of a date pinwheel cookie, "Really? You will?"

"Yes, dear, although I do hate to lose a competent helper," Mother Goose reached down and grasped the gold chain where it ran past her stool. With a click, the ankle portion released and fell to the floor. "Just remember, if you should ever pass this way again, you are welcome as a guest in my home. And Aiden as well, of course."

Jen gulped the last of the tea and scrambled to her feet, "Thank you! Thank you!"

"One little bit of advice, dear," the old woman stared at her with more seriousness than Jen had ever seen in an elder's face, so she held stock still. "There are more choices than you realize."

The younger woman frowned thoughtfully at Mother Goose before throwing her arms around her, "Thanks! If I can come back to see you I will." Then she ran out the door and away from the cottage down the first path she saw, hoping it would lead her toward the castle.

"Your own little realm, eh?" Mother Goose turned to where Jareth's image and voice emanated from the small looking-glass on the wall.

"I trust you heard what you wanted?" the old woman ignored the question and gathered up the plates and teacups.

"What I heard won't be much help I'm afraid," Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose with a gloved hand. "You were supposed to find out her weaknesses - her fears and dreams - not her pathetic life story."

"You've lost your touch if you can't tell all that from her words," she tutted.

"What do you mean?" he dropped his hand and glared.

"It's perfectly obvious," Mother Goose waved a hand dismissively. "She fears losing her son and she dreams of security for them both."

"That won't help me come up with Labyrinth challenges for her," he scoffed. "The only thing I've found so far is that she's afraid of heights, although I may have inadvertently cured her of that."

"Such a pity," she crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him. "I never thought you'd be so short-sighted as to miss the fact that she's an adult and the usual children's games are inadequate for her."

"I would hardly call the Cleaners 'inadequate'," he snorted.

"They're good for scaring children, Jareth, but for a grown-up you need more," she firmly informed him.

Jareth sighed, "I suppose. Such a pity you aren't a cannibal."

"If I were, I might have eaten you when you were a mischievous child," Mother Goose laughed.

"Thank goodness for small favors," he rolled his eyes. "And thank you for doing what you could, Mother."

"Any day, dear," she smiled fondly at him before frowning. "But Jareth…"

"Yes?"

"Her life is hard, not pathetic," she corrected. "I'm quite certain she doesn't want anyone's pity - she has her own pride. She certainly didn't ask for pity from me."

"I'll keep that in mind," he frowned back at her.

"What I mean to say is… she's not the spoiled sibling or cruel step-parent we've always had in the Labyrinth."

"I'll keep that in mind," he repeated, wondering where she was going with this.

"Jareth… I like her, too," Mother Goose wrung her hands anxiously.

Too? Jareth decided not to pursue that thought just yet. "Which is why you compose nursery rhymes, not rule the Labyrinth," he rolled his eyes so hard he might have been able to juggle them along with his crystal balls. "I have my duty to challenge those who enter my Labyrinth and I'll not be derelict no matter how much you 'like' them. Good day, Mother."

She merely sighed and shook her head as he faded from the mirror, "Oh, my dear son… You rule a land of wonders and yet have become so jaded…."

 **Author's PS:** to listen to "Wild Mountain Thyme", search for the title plus Ed Sheeren ;D You're welcome! To make up for the lack of action in this chapter, the next one will have more! See ya next weekend!


	5. Action! But first, feed the baby

Despite the long delay in Mother Goose's cottage, Jen set off down the path with renewed spirit. Although Mother Goose may not be able to do much else for her, the food and chat had felt good... really good. Apart from a social services worker who had been thoroughly unimpressed and unhelpful while fully judgmental, Jen had not confided the extent of her woes to anyone until today.

As an added bonus, Jen had learned a good deal about this world and she reviewed as she walked. It was definitely separate from her own, which did not bother her much since she didn't have much to tie her to Earth. It was full of magic, which was also not a bother since she read fantasy and sci-fi voraciously. This particular kingdom was ruled by the Goblin King, whose name was Jareth, which was... not a bother per se. He supposedly had many talents (including music!) but also pride and loneliness. He was obligated to take children; Jen had been correct in suspecting that he was basically reciting a script in their first encounter. It made her wonder how he felt about his role. After that first encounter, he had seemed far less intimidating if still aloof. She could feel herself becoming fascinated by him, so she scolded herself; men in general only wanted women for one reason, and a king would never deign to notice a homeless, unwed mother.

Jen paused mid-stride. Did she -want- Jareth to notice her? Part of her wanted this fairytale adventure to include romance, but was it wise to imagine that with the king of the land? Despite whatever 'talents' Mother Goose may be referring to, surely a king must have higher standards than Jen could ever meet, no matter how 'lonely' he may be?

Jen resumed walking. The correct answer to these questions had to be no. Right now, she needed to focus on getting Aiden back. Nothing else, including mismatched eyes set in a handsome countenance, ought to distract her from her son.

Decision made, she swung her arms more freely and breathed more deeply than she had in almost a year. She remained confident that she would prevail over the labyrinth, if only because she -had- to. Life without Aiden would be completely intolerable: he was the only person in any world who truly loved her.

The trees were densely spaced with fallen logs and random small boulders scattered about. Everything seemed to be lightly coated in glitter. The air smelled of honeysuckle and spice. Jen found the woods profoundly beautiful, as befitted an enchanted forest in the world of fairies and magic.

* * *

Jareth watched in his crystal as Jen stopped, lost in thought, then continued to stride happily down the path that would, as currently configured, lead her through the Glitterwood, past the Bog of Eternal Stench, and onward to the edge of the great junk yard that lay between the woods and the Goblin City. While his mother had managed to delay her for more than an hour, Jen still had the better part of 6 remaining. It was an uncomfortably wide margin for error. Perhaps a bend in the path to a different part of the woods and a "grown-up" challenge was in order?

Aiden began fussing again and Jareth sighed. Even in the Underground, everything came to a halt for a baby's feeding-time.

* * *

Jen came around a bend in the path to discover Jareth sitting on a fallen log, Aiden fussing in his arms. Only the Goblin King could make it look like he was sitting on a throne waiting impatiently for a late courtier, she mused.

"Hey guys!" She quickened her step over to them and plopped down right beside Jareth. Despite her earlier resolution, her heart gave an extra thump as her shoulder nudged his.

"'Guys', hmm?" He raised an eyebrow and passed the baby to her, turning his head away like a gentleman until Aiden was latched on. Jen decided his expression was both smug (which seemed to be his default) and playful.

"Yeah, well, whatever you are," Jen muttered, returning her eyes to the baby. Once again, Aiden seemed in perfect condition, albeit hungry. She relaxed a bit; Jareth seemed to still be taking good care of Aiden.

Jareth snorted indignantly. _Whatever you are_? Really? Did she think him a demon or overgrown goblin of some sort?

"You wound me!" he melodramatically threw a hand over his heart and leaned away from her, but a smidgen of pique came through in his voice and Jen noticed it. He really was annoyed by her word choice. Huh. Jen filed that away for future rumination.

"Sorry!" She decided to tease, "I didn't realize your pride was such a delicate flower."

"Come come, it's a terribly informal way to refer to a king and there isn't a single part of me that could be construed as 'delicate'!" He protested.

Jen melted down completely in laughter. Even Aiden was startled as she nearly slid forward off the log.

Jareth just stared incredulously, completely dumbfounded as to what had set her off so thoroughly. First, she was happy to see Aiden (and himself?), then she went through shy, teasing, and now practically hysterical with laughter. He was afraid he'd have to rescue the baby if she slipped off the log.

She looked up at his surprised expression and guffawed again, then got a grip on herself. Clearly the man (or 'whatever') was completely unaware of the inappropriate tightness of his leggings; they were doing nothing at all to hide his 'crown jewels,' which she was sure would prove delicate enough should someone introduce a knee to them.

Jareth decided to return to some semblance of a civilized conversation, "What, no song this time?"

Jen sobered instantly, "Um... any requests?"

"Whatever you normally sing in this... instance..." He gestured vaguely at the suckling infant, "would suffice."

She smiled at Jareth's clearly old-fashioned sense of propriety and its apparent in-applicability to the front of his pants. "Okay, sure," she nodded and looked down at Aiden.

 _Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling_

 _From glen to glen and down the mountain side_

 _The summer's gone, and all the leaves are falling_

 _'Tis you, 'tis you must go, and I must bide_

Jareth was awestruck; he could see in her expression and hear in her voice that Jen connected deeply to the lyrics. It made her performance heart-wrenching. He mentally reappraised Jen, remembering what she'd told his mother and decided that it was likely her heart was indeed wounded enough to identify strongly with the sad song's tale of death and loss.

Her heart's not unlike your own, that pesky voice whispered before hiding beyond the line of self-reflection that Jareth studiously avoided. He was suddenly considering crossing that line to shut up the interloper.

Jen eyed Jareth as she sang. He seemed initially impressed but occasionally seemed to be spacing out as she sang, possibly even upset by his own thoughts. What was he thinking of? She repeated the whole thing as Aiden was not finished with the nipple he was on. Then, somewhat self-consciously, she burped him and switched sides.

"Um," she started awkwardly. "So... Mother Goose said you had some musical talent as well?"

"Did she?" Jareth played dumb, knowing full well every word that had passed between Jen and his mother.

"Yeah. Care to, um, favor me?" She raised a challenging eyebrow at him.

Jareth rose to the bait despite himself, "I suppose it -is- my turn. Very well." He cleared his throat and began.

 _See these eyes so green_

 _I can stare for a thousand years_

 _Colder than the moon_

 _Well it's been so long_

 _I've been putting out the fire with gasoline_

 _Putting out the fire with gasoline_

 _See these tears so blue_

 _An ageless heart that can never mend_

 _Tears can never dry_

 _A judgment made can never bend_

It was Jen's turn to be awestruck. Jareth's voice was soft old velvet. He could have been the greatest singer on Earth if he weren't Underground ruling goblins instead. Jen knew she'd heard the song before on the radio or something; it was familiar but she couldn't quite place it. Still, he was earnest as he sang the lyrics; they seemed to come from somewhere deep inside or even beyond him. He was mesmerizing.

"Bravo!" She cheered when the song ended, "That was amazing!"

"Thank you," one corner of Jareth's mouth quirked up into a half-smile; he was genuinely pleased by her reaction. "The goblins will cheer anything, even a chicken crowing; the praise of a fellow musician is much more valuable."

"It's much deserved," Jen enthused. Since Aiden was done, she buttoned her shirt up and burped him again. As with the last time, she felt reluctant to part with him. Having seen that he was being well cared for only dulled the ache; they had never really been separated before, and she attributed Aiden's good behavior to his being too little for full-force separation anxiety.

Jareth sat silently by, seemingly lost in thought until she held Aiden out to him. "Time to hit the trail again."

Jareth cradled the baby and gave her a mock bow before fading out. Jen stared at the spot he'd faded from before shaking her head at the tangle of thoughts in her head and walking on.

* * *

The trail wound through the woods, and Jen could just make out the topmost tower of the castle through the leafy branches now and then. Bird songs rang through the forest and a crystal-watered stream meandered as if dancing with the path.

After a time, Jen noticed a faint sound echoed through the trees. She wasn't able to identify it, although it got louder as she walked. Just before she broke through some thick underbrush, the sound resolved into a cry like that of a goat or sheep.

Coming through the branches, she saw the path curve to the left while a mud-clogged oxbow disconnected from the stream lay to the right. In the center of the mud was the shining white head and neck of a unicorn, the rest of its deer-sized body submerged in the mud and, from the churning around it, struggling to get out. The unicorn cried when it spotted Jen, as if asking for help. The whites of its eyes were showing as it was clearly panicking.

"Oh my god! I'm on my way!" Jen kicked off her shoes and stepped into the mud, almost immediately slipping and falling forward. Her toes lost track of the solid ground beneath the sludge and she became engulfed in mud up to her neck, just like the unicorn. Unlike the unicorn, however, she instinctively froze rather than thrash in the mud.

"Hey, sh-sh-sh-sh! Don't struggle so much, that's what's keeping you stuck," Jen used her baby-soothing voice to try and calm the beast. It seemed to pause and listen to her as she kept murmuring reassurances to it.

Jen tried to keep her body flat and spread out to keep from sinking into the mud, "See? Relax and you'll float up to the top." She dog-paddled toward it.

The unicorn seemed to be taking her advice until it glanced to one side and began crying and thrashing again. Jen looked where the it had and screamed: a huge snake was slither-swimming across the top of the mud right toward them!

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" she repeated over and over as adrenaline poured into her body, quickening her pulse and breaths.

The snake was shiny emerald green, easily twice as long as she was tall and several inches thick. Its tongue flicked out from between its fangs repeatedly, tasting the air to seek for prey stuck in the mud. It seemed to pause and look back and forth between the screaming unicorn and nearly hysterical human before deciding on the former. Eagerly, it slithered forward, fanged mouth opening in anticipation.

Jen got herself somewhat under control as the snake's gaze and flicking tongue turned from her and toward the unicorn, which kept thrashing and sinking into the mud until the grime was just inches beneath its jaw. She realized the beautiful creature was about to be consumed just a little more than arm's length away from her.

"No!" She screamed as she lunged forward and grabbed the serpent's neck just behind its head, pushing it straight down into the mud.

The snake struggled and wrapped its coils around Jen's arms and body, dragging her under the surface with it.

Jen managed to gulp a deep breath just before she went under. The snake's movements prevented her from floating back to the surface, and she could feel the thick mire sucking her down deeper. Her right arm brushed against something that felt solid, so she let go of the snake with that hand and touched the object. It felt like the unicorn's leg – long and spindly – and she held on to it even as her lungs began begging for air.

The serpent took advantage of her sole hand and thrashed out of her loosened grip, whipping its head around to rip through her left sleeve and sink its fangs into her upper arm. Despite the hypoxia-induced black spots around the periphery of her closed eyes, Jen screamed and the mud tried to enter her nostrils and mouth. The snake, having freed itself from Jen's grasp, turned its attention to regaining the surface – and air – and wiggled away from her vicinity.

Jen felt a burning flame spreading up and down her arm from the bite, and knew she'd been poisoned. Nevertheless, at her body's overwhelming demand for oxygen, she wheeled her arms up and behind herself, doing a backstroke as best she could with her injured arm. The blackness of suffocation began closing in on her.

"Aiden," she thought, "I'm sorry if I fail you, son."

Her right hand struck something and she grasped at it in an effort to find something – anything – to help herself. It was the unicorn's mane. She grasped it and pulled herself up just above the surface of the mud, coughing the mud out of her mouth and desperately sucking in oxygen as fast as she could. Her body relaxed and floated up as she focused solely on filling her lungs repeatedly with blessed air.

Slowly, the requirement of breath lessened and the pain in her left arm became more consuming. The fire spread down to her finger tips, making the mud feel like so many red-hot tacks poking into her flesh. Jen whimpered and felt an answering nicker from the unicorn, in whose mane her right-hand fingers were tightly tangled. She looked over at it, and saw that the unicorn must have relaxed for its neck, shoulders, and upper back were above the muck.

The unicorn looked into her eyes before slowly and carefully paddling for the edge of the mud. With a start, Jen remembered the serpent, but when she looked around it was nowhere to be seen.

The searing flames inside her left arm veins began to spread into her shoulder toward her chest. Jen groaned from the agony. Her left arm trailed in the mud beside her as the unicorn gingerly swam for the mud-hole's shore.

Her left arm muscles began to spasm uncontrollably just as the unicorn's hooves touched solid ground. Jen feared what might happen when the venom reached her lungs and heart.

The unicorn pulled her up the bank by her right arm. Jen had to force her clenched fingers to release its mane, and when they did, she slumped to the ground on her back, feet still in the ooze and left arm wiggling wildly. The burn in her shoulder told her venom was only inches from vital organs.

The unicorn, whose fur seemed to repel the grime for it stood over her sparkling pure white, looked down at Jen and bent its nose to her left arm, sniffing at the venom-spiked blood and mud. It huffed loudly, then reared and cried out loudly as if in anger. Slamming its cloven hooves on the ground, the unicorn circled around Jen, who was in such agony from the fire in the left side of her body that she could hardly even follow it with her eyes. She shoved her mud-encrusted right knuckles in her mouth to hold in agonized screams as tears squeezed out of her eyes.

The unicorn dipped its head and prodded at her left arm with its horn but the spasms prevented it from making contact with the punctures. Impatiently, it set one hoof on her left wrist and held her arm pinned while it tried again. This time, the horn reached through the rip in her shirt and accurately touched both of the fang marks.

With a flash of light, the burning ceased so abruptly that Jen gasped with surprise. She looked down at her arm, and saw the two holes from the snake's fangs scab over, the skin around them white and cool.

"Thank you!" She rolled to her side and then slowly pushed up to sit on the bank of the muddy oxbow. It took several times more effort than usual.

The unicorn nodded its head and then trotted away as lightly as if it were dancing.

Jen stared after it, jaw hanging open as the knowledge that she had saved and been saved by a real, honest-to-goodness unicorn struck her dumb. At last, she shakily pulled her shoes back on, struggled to her feet in her mud-stiffened clothing, and began to trudge forward.

* * *

Jareth held his breath when Jen went under. The mud-hole rescue had become hideously complicated when one of the forest snakes was drawn by the sound of struggling prey. He was quite certain for a while that Jen wouldn't make it out of the mud alive. When she did, and the snake left in search of an easier meal, he nearly shouted out loud. He quickly dampened his own excitement as a twinge of guilt smote him: he'd nearly had a fatality on his hands. While that was not unheard-of, he felt it reflected poorly on his skill at managing the labyrinth if a challenger was killed instead of merely failing to solve it in time.

Skill aside, that treacherous voice from within whispered, he would have been particularly culpable if he'd killed a selfless and brave woman like her. He mentally brushed that voice back into its cave of unwanted thoughts. Jen was proving a worthy adversary and nothing more. Still, to ensure that the next delaying tactic didn't explode in his face, he supposed he'd better take care of things personally.

* * *

 **Author's PS:** The song Danny Boy is easily found online covered by just about everybody. The other song is Cat People by David Bowie, of course ;) I'm at a dangerous point, here: I've only barely started on chapter 6. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it done, beta'd, and polished for next week... Maybe more reviews and faves would motivate me (hint, hint!)


	6. TRIGGER WARNING

**Author's note:** PLEASE take the chapter title seriously if you are a survivor and need to avoid triggers. I'll sum up at the beginning of next chapter so you don't need to fear missing out on major plot points.

* * *

After pausing at a wide section of the stream to wash the mud out her clothes, Jen walked in a cloud of uncertainty and fear. This fairy-land was far more dangerous than she'd come to expect. The first several challenges, the second and third encounters with the Goblin King (Jareth, she reminded herself of his name), and Mother Goose had lulled her into thinking she was more safe than she really was. Remembering Hoggle at the entrance to the labyrinth, she realized she had taken safety for granted and was shocked at herself. She had lived in the big city most of her life and knew better than to do that: the minute you did was likely to be the minute you got mugged or worse. Even before that, at her first childhood home, when her uncle came to visit… She shuddered and shoved those memories aside. No, safety could never - must never - be taken for granted regardless of the setting. She found herself wishing, not for the first time, for magic or combat skills with which to defend herself.

The gong had long since announced that she was down to just five hours. Jen pulled the stray strands of hair that had escaped from the braid behind her ear and glanced around her. The forest seemed like it was thinning out: the light was brighter and the trees were spaced further apart.

Moments later, she stepped out of the forest and her jaw dropped at the shocking sight of a wasteland full of junk. Dull, brown land stretched for miles between her and the Goblin City. It was punctuated by brown piles of broken junk from many different locations and periods of human history. It looked as if every discarded item ever to be forgotten in the world had landed in this section of the Underground, where it had been bleached of all colors except shades of brown by the fat orange sun glaring down upon it all.

Estimating that it would probably take another hour and a half to cover the ground to the city gate, Jen sighed and paused to stretch her back and legs. She decided to pity anyone who had to solve the Labyrinth who wasn't in halfway decent physical condition: the miles were definitely making themselves known to her soles.

As she left the forest and entered the grassless plain, Jen noticed the relative silence all around her. Save for the occasional buzzing of flies, there were no animal sounds and no wind to relieve the oppressive heat of the seemingly endless junkyard.

At first, she tried to ignore the piles of junk but as she went, her eyes kept getting caught by an item here or there. Broken Roman shields interspersed with torn Senate robes and broken pottery, topped by a standard-pole whose crowning eagle had only one wing remaining to stretch out in defiance of the Huns. Shattered wagon wheels, yokes, and barrels, scraps of calico prairie dresses, coils of barbed wire, and a stained ten-gallon hat with an arrow through it. Despite the baking warmth, Jen shivered at the thought that she was wandering through the graveyard of human civilizations.

Each step seemed to wring another ounce of of sweat from Jen's body and added to the overall sense of the despair about the place. The next junk pile to catch her eye featured crushed cellos, bent trombones, and other destroyed symphonic instruments. She gasped and jumped when a hand-sized scorpion skittered inside the lower half of a broken-off bassoon.

The piles seemed to crowd closer as if to urge her to examine them. Snapped spears, chipped stone tools, decaying baskets, and large, primitive animal skulls. Ripped nets, split oars, rusted anchors, shark jaws, muskets, and discolored scraps of canvas. Department store mannequins with missing eyes/hair/limbs, cracked luggage, dented cookware, slashed purses, and filthy towels. The stacks gathered around her path like starving third world beggars holding out alms bowls, demanding that she witness and pity their degraded state.

Jen's steps slowed to a halt. The head of a merry-go-round horse, lower jaw missing, seemed to be wailing at her from a pile of carnival detritus. It reminded her of the merry-go-round at the county fair that her uncle had taken her to. Later that same day, the pervert had wanted her to ride on him like the merry-go-round horse while he lay belly-up on the floor of her parent's shabby apartment in his beer-reeking t-shirt and cut-offs. Both her mom and dad had been busy working part-time dead-end jobs and happily took him up on the offer of babysitting for 8-year-old Jen.

She jerked her face away from the wooden horse and wiped away the tear threatening to escape her left eye. Crying about her childhood woes wouldn't get her to Aiden any faster. She looked up at the glaring sky and forced her breathing to slow until she could take a deep breath without feeling like it would morph into a sob. Without a backward glance at the carnival pile, she started down the narrow aisle between the next two piles.

Motion on her lower left drew Jen's eye, but when she looked, it was only the side-mirror of an ancient Chevy squashed at the very bottom of a totem-pole of crushed classic cars. The one immediately above it caused Jen's stomach to lurch and threaten to mutiny: it was a green Mustang exactly like the one in which her uncle had driven her to the county fair on that day. Suddenly, she remembered the sensations of 'riding' her uncle and then she did double over and vomit up Mother Goose's refreshments onto the brown dust, which swirled up and caused her to cough. The coughs almost immediately turned into sobs as Jen found she could no longer hold in the flood-gate of agony that had festered in her guts for years.

* * *

Jareth rubbed his chin in confusion at Jen's reactions to the junkyard. The area contained cast-offs from centuries of human history, which made it a useful place to set up a variety of challenges for wishers. Something in there was bound to trigger memories, both good and bad, in any who traversed it. Still, the magnitude of Jen's reaction seemed disproportionate to the situation. Despite the fact that Jen was making zero progress at this point, Jareth felt distinctly uncomfortable. She was kneeling in the dust, doubled over with her face in her arms, weeping in jagged sobs that sounded like they came from the depths of her very soul.

The only time he'd ever seen anything like it was when a mother had wished away her sick toddler and the child had expired from the measles immediately upon arrival in Jareth's throne room. He hadn't even appeared to the mother to challenge her to run the labyrinth yet, so instead, he returned the tiny body to her and stood by while she grieved.

He glared in the direction of the window, mentally running over every word that had come out of Jen during her entire run of the Labyrinth. She hadn't lost a child, at least, not according to what she had told his mother… however, she -had- mentioned an uncle, just in passing, but the implication had been clear that he was far from a nurturing presence in her life.

Jareth's fist pounded on the arm of his throne, startling the goblin that had been polishing his boots who took one glance at his king's murderous countenance and fled the throne room altogether. Jareth had seen the effects of various forms of abuse on countless children (both the wished-away and the wishers) and finally recognized the adult iteration now that the connection had been made. If that uncle was ever so unfortunate as to become known to him, he vowed to himself that the bastard would die terrified and tortured in the darkest parts of the labyrinth for his evil.

* * *

Jen's head jerked up and she grimaced angrily at the damned Mustang. "Aaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh!" Jen grabbed the nearest piece of debris, which happened to be a cracked wooden baseball bat, jumped up, and whaled on the Mustang. She was sick and tired of carrying the burden of shame and pain that her uncle had saddled her with. It was completely unfair: -he- was an adult that was supposed to be benevolent and trustworthy and she had been just a child. Yet -she- was the one who had felt branded by his actions and carried it with her ever since, tainting every other relationship she'd ever experienced with distrust and fear.

She kept whacking the pitted green door as she thought of her parents. They had only clued in weeks later, when she'd cried and begged them not to leave her with her uncle again. Her father had sided with his brother against his own daughter since no clothing had been removed and grinding on her didn't apparently count. In response, her mother had taken her meager savings from waitressing and boarded a train to the city with Jen in tow.

Each thought, each memory, each emotion from that most horrible time of her life went into the crushed carcass of the Mustang. Jen beat them with the bat until all of it had been exorcised and then kept going until she'd burnt through her self-loathing at losing her son and the fear at she may someday act as clueless as her parents and her child would pay the penalty. No! She would -never- be like that! She would -never- allow anyone to harm her child, much less side with the abuser!

"Never!" Jen screamed with a final, violent blow to the green Mustang and then she collapsed to her knees again, this time with a welcome sense of release and resolve.

The sound of the gong (4 hours left) roused her from the contemplation of the rather pleasant sensation of empty calm where her uncle's burden had been. Shakily, she regained her feet, dropped the bat, and shuffled forward. This time, the castle was the only thing that her eyes were drawn to.

* * *

 **Author's PS:** Thank you all for the encouragement - you are worth writing for! I'll see you next week with a juicy (and no trigger warning needed) chapter. Thanks for reading and hanging in there with me and Jen. If you want a song to ponder with this particular chapter, I recommend "Hell is for Children" by Pat Benatar. I'm a bit of an intuitive writer in that I know the story's start and end, but I write what feels right in between as opposed to having it planned out in detail ahead of time. This chapter is what felt right to me since I'm trying to write the Labyrinth as a therapeutic device: an opportunity for challengers to face shadows/temptations and then grow from it. I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter, so review/PM away!


	7. Entry Fee

**Author's Note:** Thank you for your patience and support! I forgot to mention in my PS on chapter 6 that I was going on vacation. I had hoped to post another update before heading out, but clearly that was not meant to be. I hope you can forgive me :)

For those who skipped the last chapter, Jen's childhood abuse memories were triggered by the junk in the yard and she worked out her anger by beating a junk car with a bat. It was cathartic and good for her. Jareth observed in his crystals and understood.

Now on to this chapter! This one is brief, but the next one is shaping up to be much longer - I'm sure you'll understand ;)

* * *

Jen rounded the last pile of junk (cannons, blue and grey tattered uniforms, drums, rifles, and the hoops from beneath wide skirts), and immediately ducked behind it again. The gate set into the double-walls of the Goblin City was being guarded by at least three dozen goblins, of which no two were even remotely identical. They were encamped between Jen and the entrance she needed to pass through. Most were lined up and failing spectacularly in their attempt to march as a unit. A small circle passed around a couple of chickens and conversed about their wingspans and egg-laying abilities. Other goblins played with simple toys, and the last few simply sat against the wall and napped. While the motley regiment did little to inspire somatic fear in Jen, she knew that reinforcements, including the Goblin King, could always be summoned. Her heart sank a little as she considered that Jareth would undoubtedly be far less congenial when acting in his official capacity than when bringing Aiden for a feeding.

"Damn," she muttered and leaned back on her heels, scanning the walls for an alternate way in. There were no other gates, but she did see that the stream from the forest had widened out into a respectable river and flowed into the Goblin City through a tunnel. A handful of small gondolas with bird-like goblins at the oars glided along the river, transporting crates of goods and baskets of produce in and out.

Jen quickly formulated a plan and began rifling through the heap of US civil war junk. Several minutes later, she scuttled away from the stack with a pile of cloth items in her arms.

Careful to keep stacks of junk between herself and the goblin regiment, she made her way toward the river. A quick rummage in a heap of Broadway detritus added a small pot still half-full of blue stage makeup, the stub of a black eyeliner pencil, and a large shard from a mirror to her materials. The blue got applied to all her hands, neck, and face. The pencil was used to add stage wrinkles to the backs of her hands and around her mouth. Jen donned long strips of cloth bandages, which held a hump of fabric in place between her shoulders. Next, she tucked her hair up into a faded blue cap with a gold bugle embroidered on the top; the cap fell down around her head so that only the tip of her nose on down was visible. A long gray coat that only had one bullet hole and no blood on the outside concealed her clothing and held the makeup and mirror shard in its pocket.

Before leaving the relative safety of the junkyard, Jen mentally thanked her one and only high school drama class, which had put on "Arsenic and Old Lace." While she hadn't been comfortable trying for a stage role, the acting experience in the classroom and the makeup practice in the green room had been mostly fun. Satisfied with her disguise, Jen took three deep breaths and fake-limped toward the nearest dock where a trio of goblins were loading baskets of fruit onto a gondola pointed toward the city.

"Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeee!" the big-beaked one screeched when a covered basket got set down on his toes. "Watch what you do!"

"Get out of my way!" retorted the blue goblin. "Hurry up!"

"Hey you!" the shortest one squawked at Jen, causing her heart to stop for a second. "Get that one!"

Jen sighed in relief and grabbed the biggest basket, which was too large for the diminutive goblins to handle by themselves. Using her legs to lift, she hefted it up and waddled down the dock to the boat, carefully squatting to place it within.

"Are we done?" Blue wondered aloud.

"We done! We done!" Big Beak tweeted.

"Yay!" Blue bounced onto the platform at the back of the gondola and seized the oar.

Jen hopped into the flat central area of the boat, between the baskets that were larger than Shorty.

"Hey!" Shorty called to her. "You go?"

"I go!" Jen tried to imitate their speech, making her voice nasal and the words clipped.

"You pay first!" Blue shook a fist at her.

Jen frowned at them, realizing she hadn't managed to find anything of value in the junkyard. Warily, she choked out, "How pay?"

Shorty jumped into the boat before her and brandished a crystal sphere. Jen stared at it, fighting a mounting panic trying to claw its way out of her gut. She could see the reflection of her left eye in the globe, widened in panic. The image froze in place and Shorty stuffed it into his belt-pouch before climbing back onto the dock and throwing both hands downward to cast off responsibility for the gondola and its contents.

What had just happened? Jen gingerly fished the mirror shard from her coat pocket and nearly dropped it on the boat floor when she saw that the color had been drained from her left eye, leaving it gray. What the fuck?! Her fare on this boat had been the color of her left eye? What the hell currency did that carry? She firmly shook her head and plastered a grim smile upon her lips, reminding herself firmly that it didn't matter what the price was as long as she got Aiden back. Besides, if this was a psychotic break or hallucination as she had at first believed, all would go back to normal as soon as she broke out of it.

Her smile wavered at the sight of the bottom spikes of a portcullis protruding from the top of the tunnel: so many teeth ready to chomp down on the tiny boat she rode in.

* * *

Jareth chuckled gleefully at his crystal. Out of the many possible ways to gain entrance to the Goblin City, Jen had chosen his favorite and made it better. Other challengers had attempted disguises, whereas some simply bartered with either the river or gate goblins, many swam the tunnel without being noticed by the never-very-observant goblins, and one had tried to punch a gondolier and commandeer the craft (that one had been pitched headfirst into the river by a mysteriously violent wave, only to find that the river had instantaneously contracted a vast and horrible leech infestation); almost all challengers paid whatever price that the goblins charged for entrance to their city, whether locks of hair or a favorite dream or the ability to hear one specific frequency of sound. Jen had taken the disguise attempt to new heights, adding makeup, voice, and acting to previous challengers' mere clothing. Jareth grinned wolfishly and shook his head: this woman didn't do things by halves.

The grin slipped as he considered his next move. He was already semi-committed to it and everything was in place. It was not a new ploy by any means, but part of him feared it could somehow be as dangerous for him as for her. Stifling his misgivings, Jareth whispered into the crystal before blowing it off his fingers and out the window, to be followed by several more.

* * *

The river tunnel was lined with damp, textured, glittered stone, which was broken only by more of the eye-moss and very widely spaced torches. The vessel passed through long shadows in between pools of torchlight. The air was generally still and damp, save for the occasional breath coming from the direction of the city ahead.

The gondola moved excruciatingly slowly. Jen was certain that she could slowly stroll whilst reading and still be traveling faster than this boat. It gave her time to think, but she really wasn't in the mood for more thinking. Her stomach loudly rumbled, reminding her that she'd left her last meal in the dust of the junkyard.

"You there! You hungry?" Blue tilted his head at her. At her mute nod, he pointed at the baskets around her. "Eat up! Eat up!"

Jen smiled and gave a slight bow to the goblin before turning to the large basket that she'd loaded onto the gondola. In the shadow between torches, she couldn't identify it, but the texture and taste of the fruit in her hand told her that the basket had been full of peaches. With a happy sigh, Jen leaned back against the baskets and allowed her eyelids to drift closes. She didn't see the large, glowing bubbles floating above the surface of the dark river toward the boat.

The far-off gong sounded 3 hours remaining.


	8. The Ball

Laughter... Jen turned her head toward the sound, opening her eyes to a decadent costume party in full swing. She was surrounded by men in waistcoats and women in corsets and long skirts, all made from rich, pale fabrics. Feathers and lace trimmed every hem and neckline. The party-goers sported fantastic headdresses and expensive, Venetian-style masks with bulbous noses. They were whispering together, sipping champagne, eating, laughing, fanning themselves, admiring reflections in round hand-held mirrors, and dancing... sometimes all at once, filling nearly every square foot of the ballroom. Entertainers in motley attire wended their way through the crowd with their little routines designed to elicit more laughter: a juggler with clear crystalline spheres, a magician with a black top hat, a gypsy toting an ancient chest, and more. Slender servers who looked like they'd been painted head to toe in gold flitted by as graceful as ballerinas bearing trays of fancy hors d'oeuvres and drinks. The entire place was a commotion of sound and movement, with the scents of beeswax candles and heady perfumes heavily in the air.

Pink and peach tuffets littered the red-carpeted floor of the ballroom, which was further broken up with short flights of stairs up or down to platforms strewn with circular white tables were laden with candles, goblets, and food platters. Strings of pearls and tiny round mirrors hung from snake-like candelabras. The capitals of Romanesque columns, sans shafts, protruded downward from the ceiling while the mirrored walls curved up from the red-carpeted floor to the white dome above.

Jen thought it looked like the party was inside of a pearl and then giggled: what if it was? Wouldn't it be marvelous?

The feeling that she ought to be moving propelled her from where she stood by an ornate clock and out into the merry crowd. Up on an elevated platform, a man with a wild mane of hair not wearing a mask caught her eye, but before she could look again, he was gone. No matter, she shrugged to herself, there were plenty of people here to meet without worrying about whomever that might have been. She snatched a champagne flute from a passing server and twirled through the throng, enjoying herself.

Before Jen could materialize into the Goblin Castle's ballroom, Jareth stepped back and concealed himself behind a quintet of revelers. As per standing orders, the goblins masquerading as humans wearing goblin masks instantly stepped forward to hide him. Their cover gave him the chance to see how the challenger would react to the ballroom and thus gauge how to draw her in further. A ripple of energy from the clock signaled her impending arrival. The goblins struck up slow, sensual music and began playing their assigned roles.

Then she was there and Jareth's jaw fell open. From the grubby, weather-beaten street urchin had blossomed as lovely a lady as to put Cinderella and all her legendary kin to shame. Jen appeared with her back to the clock, sleek and regal in a silken midnight-blue gown with sparkling gems at the top and base of the sweetheart bodice and a full skirt. In sharp contrast to the pale and ornate ensembles throughout the room, her dark dress bore no sleeves or shoulder-straps, no lace or feathers. Instead of the goblins' mounds of curls, her long hair had been parted deep along one side and fishtail braided back into a large bun at the back of her head that was held in place with a blue butterfly comb. Her face had been cleansed of the awful stage paint and done up with smokey eyes touched with glitter and dark crimson lips, a simpler and more becoming look than that sported by the goblins. From his elevated perspective, he could plainly see that her baggy street clothes had indeed concealed a fine figure now shown off to full advantage, albeit tastefully, by the gown. The peach magic, which was designed to find and manifest the eater's ballroom fantasy, had clearly outdone itself. It took an almost physical effort to remind himself of the purpose of the enchantment: to delay the challenger into losing.

He observed as she looked around, examining the goblins and the room before smiling and giggling, the sound not dissimilar to faerie laughter. What was she thinking? The peach had also wiped her memories, so what alternate incarnation of Jen O'Brien had appeared before him? Her now-odd eyes suddenly turned in his direction and he stepped behind his concealment goblins. Unperturbed, she grabbed a glass and began circulating as though she hadn't a care in the world, which, in light of the enchantment she was under, was probably true.

Jen swayed with the music as she looked for... she wasn't quite sure what. She slowly became aware that her look was rather distinct - her understated ballgown was more modern than the 18th century costumes around her and she lacked a mask. When revelers at a table full of sweet morsels offered a sample to her, she set aside the feeling that something was off about the place and joined them, only moving on when she had tried several different treats and drained her champagne. An entertainer dressed as a wizard stepped in front of her and threw his hands in the air, causing tiny fireworks to burst from the sleeves of his black and spangled robe; he elicited ooohs and delighted laughter from both Jen and those around her. The unmasked man appeared in the corner of her eye, making her heart beat fast, but again he vanished. Perhaps she was looking for him?

Jareth trailed her, keeping goblin women with large fans between him and Jen lest she should turn suddenly and catch him following her. Again, her differentness from prior challengers struck him: absolutely no adults had ever made it this far and the minors who did were all visibly uncomfortable in this very grown-up setting. Jen took to the ball like a sparrow to the sky, showing no discomfort whatever. It was almost unsettling how at ease she seemed as she wandered with nearly-dancing steps, smiling and laughing at the entertainers that often scared child-challengers. In short order she had become the belle of the ball. Nevertheless, he could tell by the way she resumed circulating after mere moments in one place that Jen still felt the urge to move and search - the enchantment couldn't dismiss that feeling but only lead the challenger to weigh it against the temptation to stay in the ballroom, all the while ignorant as to why.

Jen stepped over tuffets and around dancing party-goers to a table where cards were being shuffled for a game.

"A game, milady?" at the dealer's inquiring look, she nodded. To her surprise, the three cards she received weren't typical playing cards but fortune-telling ones: the Fool, the Moon, and the Magician.

The other two players took single cards from their hands and held them out to her. "Choose just one!" a player urged.

Not knowing the meanings, she examined each: the Knight of Wands and the Lovers. She shook her head - how to choose?

"Neither to your liking?" the dealer saw her head shake and offered her the top card from the deck: Judgement.

Jen gazed at it a moment, uncertain if this was a better option. On a whim, she reached for the deck and took the next card off the top. Turning it over, she saw it was the Sun. She smiled widely at the bright and joyous image of a boy on horseback in front of a blazing sun. The image of the child tugged at something important in the back of her mind, but she couldn't quite grasp the memory so she simply added the card to her hand.

The other players and dealer silently abandoned their cards and dispersed through the crowd. With a last glance at her hand, she tucked the Sun card in her bodice, dropped the rest on the table, and turned. The mask-less man staring at her from a few yards away, a smile playing about his lips.

Jareth was amused by Jen's antics at the card table. He wasn't able to see her hand, but her body language had spoken clearly. Unsatisfied with what was offered, Jen had, in her typical fashion, made her own choice and got a result that better pleased her. Without warning, she turned to face him, and her eyes froze him in place with a jolt of electricity. Her expression filled with curiosity and wonder - with a hint of flirtation - as she slowly closed the distance between them.

This time, the mask-less man stayed put so Jen carefully stepped around dancers and knots of gossipers to stand before him, heart pounding. He looked so familiar, but she couldn't remember where she'd seen him before. He seemed as awestruck as she felt, and both simply gazed at each other a long moment until a pair of dancers bumped his elbow. Then his face tensed briefly before becoming flirty; he lifted her hand to his lips with a coy half-smile.

Jareth was completely undone by the vision before him. The weight of a hard life seemed to have fallen from Jen's shoulders so that her eyes were unclouded by doubt or concern. What remained was sparkles of wonder, fun, and caring. The two were lost in each others' gaze until suddenly his elbow was bumped by a goblin couple as they danced by. For a split second, Jareth was crushed by guilt and self-loathing: he was knowingly deceiving Jen for the purpose of separating her from her child and after that he'd have to send her back to that degrading life from which she'd wish for escape. He could no longer pretend that she was merely an adversary to be defeated. He simply didn't know what to do, so he resumed his role of fairytale host to perpetuate the enchantment while he pondered. His hands wanted desperately to touch her, so instead he kissed her hand.

"Won't you favor me with a dance?" he murmured, and at her nod drew her into his arms. The pair floated around the ballroom lost in each others' gaze. Enchanted tuffets and goblins gave them wide berth so their progress was unimpeded. After a long while, he sighed at the pleasurable sensation of holding her even as his divided mind grappled with the dilemma: his role versus his desires.

Jen felt like a princess dancing with the prince of the ball. It was so easy to relax into the mask-less man's arms and follow in the dance. Surely this was what she had been searching for? The warmth in her heart said it could be. He sighed and she could see that his eyes were troubled, which distressed her; it was utterly wrong for so fantastic - and oddly familiar- a man to be unhappy in this opulent ball. She lifted her hand from his shoulder to his cheek, willing him to comforted.

At her tender caress on his cheek, Jareth felt his walls crumble. He slowed their dance to a halt and pulled Jen close, asking with his eyes for permission (which she granted with a slight nod and smile) before bending down to press a kiss to her lips.

Their lips met and Jen felt the warmth in her heart explode and light her skin on fire. She reached up to thread her fingers into his hair and pull him closer, deepening the kiss.

Jareth's hands wrapped around Jen's waist and clutched her tightly against his body, unable to bear the thought of ever letting her go. But Jen had to come up for air and so he reluctantly loosened his grasp and leaned his forehead against hers. Seeing her flushed cheeks and panting breaths almost made him want to sweep her off to a more private area of the castle. He settled for escorting her gently to the nearest table of refreshments, pressing a silver goblet of punch into her hands.

Jen gratefully sipped. She tried to breathe deeply, but the proximity of the cause of her breathlessness made it difficult to focus on trivial matters such as air. She wanted more kisses.

Once Jen was sipping the chilled fruit juice and and her breathing was slowly returning to normal, Jareth glanced about the room to ensure that the goblins were behaving better than he had been. Following a glare from their monarch, the goblins shook themselves from their shock at his unprecedented actions and resumed their roles with even more gossiping than usual.

Jen glanced at the mirrored wall behind the table to check her hair and the goblet dropped from her hand to the floor, spilling punch all over her shoes and the mask-less man's boots. She didn't notice his jump. Her attention was riveted on her reflection, specifically, her eyes, which were now two different colors. _My eyes_ _aren't supposed to be that way,_ she thought, _how did that happen?_

The silver cup hit the deep carpet and a splash soaked the floor, speckling his boots. Jareth turned sharply and froze at the horrified expression on Jen's face. She was leaning toward the mirrored wall, one hand touching her left cheek below her now-gray eye. _Any second now and she will remember everything... and she will run away from me... just like..._

As if hearing his thoughts, Jen's eyes found his and he could read the shock, remembrance, and betrayal in them... and then the enchantment was broken and the room exploded.

* * *

 **Author's PS:** the meanings of the tarot cards that Jen receives can be viewed at the TarotLore website. Post your interpretation of Jen's fortune in reviews/PMs!

If you enjoyed this chapter, just wait: there's only one or two more chapters plus an epilogue. Thank you for continuing on this journey with Jen and I! Your kind reviews and follows have been wonderful encouragement to keep going. See you next weekend :)


	9. One Hour Left

**Author's Note:** Wow! I'm amazed at the positive response to the last chapter, and very grateful to you all for reading/following/reviewing! MoonGoddessMitsuki had the closest to correct interpretation of the cards; the one thing she missed will be revealed in the epilogue ;D

* * *

The ballroom dissolved in a blinding flash of light and glitter, leaving Jen blinking hard to clear her vision. She swayed on her feet and collapsed to her bottom on the floor dizzy from the mental whiplash left by the enchantment. The patchwork of hard stones beneath her scraped her palms.

What on Earth (or wherever) had just happened? She'd been at a ball and _kissed_ Jareth? Was it a dream? Where was she _now_? She remembered the boat and the peach, and next she was at the ball with no memory. All the details flooded her mind, from the sparkling chandeliers to the crazy masks and the entertainers to the cards. And then there was Jareth. Jen's heart thudded loudly as her mind turned to their dance and their kiss. Her attempt to straighten out her thoughts derailed and she spent several moments immersed in reliving it all. His face had been so different from every previous time she'd encountered him. Always before, his expression was smug bordering on arrogant, tempered with playfulness; at the ball, however, he'd seemed sad when he wasn't staring into her eyes like he was trying to dive into them. She shivered at the memory of how they'd danced, never once breaking eye contact until that kiss, which brought on its own shiver.

Glancing down at herself, she saw that the lovely ballgown was gone. Her street clothes plus the US civil war pieces were back. She experimentally touched her cheek and was glad that the facepaint hadn't returned to clog her pores. The blue paint-pot, eyeliner pencil, and mirror shard had all found their way back to the greatcoat's pocket. She took off the cap and tucked it in the other coat pocket, but kept the coat on due to the coolness of her new environment.

Raising her head to examine her surroundings, she saw that it was dark in comparison to the brightly-lit party, with a single shaft of light illuminating about a square foot of the floor to her left. She could hear the far-off drip of water. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out stone walls. Turning her head slowly, she surveyed the tiny chamber, noting a large pile of musty hay in one corner, a clunky wooden stool in another, and finally a door made of metal bars with a huge padlock on it.

"A dungeon," she sighed, feeling trapped. "Great."

Jen approached the door and rattled it. The sound echoed into the blackness beyond, but the hinges and lock all appeared sound. Next, she examined each wall with her hands as well as her rapidly-adjusting eyes. All she found was a large vertical crack in which a wilted-looking weed was rooted.

"Stuck down here, too, huh?" she whispered to it. "If I'm down here for too long, I guess I'll start to feel the way you look."

None of the stones in the floor wiggled in response to her prying fingers. With another sigh, she resolved to go through the hay. One handful at a time, she grabbed a bunch and walked it to the other side of the chamber where it was dumped. After disturbing a family of cute brown mice, she gave up and went to sit on the stool, leaning her back against the walls.

"So," she started thinking out loud, "is this how it's going to end? Am I stuck in a dungeon until the time runs out... and then what? Do I get kicked back out on the streets of my world? Do I get to stay? Does Aiden get turned into a goblin?"

Tears threatened to fill her eyes at the thought of her son, so she tried to think of something else. But her mind immediately ran back to Jareth and the masked ball. What the hell _was_ all that, and more importantly, what the hell was that _kiss_? In the dark of the dungeon, her pessimistic side insisted it was nothing more than a way to eat into her time, while the part of her that was deeply infatuated with him countered that there was something in it. How would she know which was true... assuming it wasn't a dream? The whole thing was a confusing whirlwind, but if she was being honest with herself, it was also the most amazing experience of her life.

* * *

Immediately after rematerializing from the broken enchantment, Jareth stormed straight out of his throne room to a study, where he flipped a table over end before plopping down in a chair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. What had he been thinking? The often-used masked ball had gone from a simple delay tactic to an emotional quagmire. He'd finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to Jen, and had basically communicated it to her with that kiss. He leaned back in the chair with a half-smile, remembering that kiss. He had begun it tentatively, but she had responded with a passion that had surprised him considering he hadn't been completely certain as to her feelings beforehand. Could he now assume that his interest was returned, as he had hoped and suspected?

He conjured a crystal, suddenly itching to know where Jen had wound up after the enchantment ended and randomly deposited her somewhere closer than she'd started (the compensation for the lost time and memory-wipe). For a moment, it looked like she was in an oubliette, but with a twist of the sphere to change the viewing angle, he could see she'd wound up in the dungeon, right inside the castle itself! He didn't know why, but it looked like she was moving the hay from one corner to the other before abruptly giving up and sitting on the stool, talking to herself before falling into a brooding silence.

She had wondered aloud how it would end... a fair question which Jareth would be largely responsible for answering. He glanced at the clock - 11:45, so just one hour and fifteen minutes to sort out the wreckage he'd made of both his heart and her run of the labyrinth. Considering Jen was locked up in his dungeon, he could simply allow the time to run out, giving him the sole choice of how to dispense with both the wisher and the wished-away. It was tempting... but he guessed that doing so would alienate her forever and that was the last thing he wanted to risk. The nobler, if also riskier, option was to give her a fair chance to win and if she did so then the choice would be hers. She might choose to stay, if not in the castle then perhaps at least in his realm, in accordance with the wish that had brought her here. That thought cheered him immensely and Jareth whispered a spell into the crystal.

* * *

 **DONG**! The gong (which must be in the castle above, it was so ridiculously loud) sounded that her last hour had begun. Jen sprang up from the stool and paced the cell. Idleness didn't set well with her and there _had_ to be a way to get out of this dungeon and win Aiden back. Her eyes had finally adjusted as much as they could, so perhaps she'd be able to find something she'd overlooked before.

The crack in the wall seemed the most promising. She slid her fingers in as far as she could, poking about for anything hidden in its depths but came up with nothing but a few pebbles and rock flakes. The listless plant sat there, looking sad and abandoned, rooted in a wet, grapefruit-sized ball of unidentifiable muck.

"Poor thing," she whispered to it. "Probably too dark for you down here, isn't it?" She glanced from the shaft of light to the plant, pondering. Determined to do something for the weed since she couldn't find a way to help herself, she scooped up some of the gravel from the crack, pulled the glass mirror shard from her pocket, and used a pile of the former to prop up the latter and reflect sunlight onto the plant. The plant's long, pale leaves immediately darkened and perked up. Its roots stretched down through the bottom of the muck ball about an inch before stopping.

"You like some light, huh? How about something for your roots..." Jen looked around the chamber before her eye caught on the hay. It was the only organic material in the cell, so she grabbed a thick double handful of it and crammed it into the crack around the plant's roots. The effect was instantaneous. Both roots and leaves lengthened by about six inches, the force of their growth spurt splitting the top of the muck ball apart.

Something glinted from inside the split. Jen carefully picked the ball apart just enough to withdraw a thick piece of wire, about the length of her hand. It wasn't a key to the padlock, but it might still get her out of there.

At first, she simply jammed the wire into the keyhole and twisted it around. Nothing. Racking her brain, she remembered seeing someone on TV jam one piece of wire into the bottom of a lock before inserting another piece straight in. She carefully folded her wire in half, bending it back and forth until it broke into two finger-length pieces. These she used per her very vague memory of watching someone do this on TV (Jen rolled her eyes at herself doing something based on TV). It took several minutes and a wire through the cuticle of her right pointer finger before the lock finally opened.

"YES!" Jen shoved her injured finger in her mouth and swung the door open. Stepping into the dark corridor, her eyes saw a dim light far away. Stifling the urge to run at it, she forced herself to keep one hand on the wall and feel ahead with her toes before stepping forward. After closing half the distance, she could see from the light's reflection on the floor that there were no holes to trip her, so she sprinted toward the torch.

A spiral staircase arose from the dungeon up toward well-lit levels of the castle. She climbed them as fast as she could, stumbling a few times in her haste. The first level up seemed to be composed of a long hall filled with tables at which scores of goblins could have eaten at once. The room was abandoned except for a snoozing goblin under one of the benches. Jen decided this level seemed unlikely to be the one where Aiden was held, and kept climbing.

The stairs ended at the next level, forcing Jen down a long hallway with doors at random intervals along one side and windows along the other. She checked the first door and was nearly buried under a pile of brooms and other cleaning supplies. Looking out the window, the nearby central tower seemed a likelier place to be hiding a prisoner. Ignoring the remaining doors, she ran down the hall, pulling up and ducking behind a unicorn sculpture when a noisily-rattling pair of armored goblins patrolled out of the door at the end and down the hall.

As soon as the goblins had disappeared around the bend of the spiral stairs, Jen put her eye to the keyhole of the door they'd left and groaned: it was a large room full of more goblins! She noted a bowl-shaped depression in the center and half-circle chair at one end. Considering the number of goblins hanging on literally every ledge and floor space, it would be impossible to pass through unseen.

How would she get through? She still had the blue face-paint, but dreaded trying to get the stuff off her skin without the help of magic... or at least some baby wipes. Despairing at having to stop, she opened the paint and coated her face and neck in it, eschewing the eyeliner pencil since she'd left her mirror in the dungeon.

Pulling the cap down as far as possible, Jen assumed her goblin "character" and opened the door with a trembling hand. Three dock goblins was one thing - a room full of at least two dozen goblins was something altogether different! With a gulp, she limped across the room, trying to look like she knew where she was going and had a purpose.

"Who's that?" "Must be something for Kingy," she heard the whispers, but none of the goblins addressed or stopped her. She made it through the archway across the room and began climbing the stairs on the other side.

This set of stairs wound upwards around the fat central tower of the castle... and they seemed to go on forever! Jen was forced to pause at a window and catch her breath. Panting, she looked out and saw the city, forest, and labyrinth laid out like a beautiful tapestry. The sight was awe-inspiring, but she had to turn away from it and keep going.

She climbed yet more steps until she came to an open doorway. Stepping through, Jen clutched a hand to her heart and sat heavily on the floor as vertigo overwhelmed her. It was nearly impossible to tell which way was up. Staircases ran in literally every direction (including side-ways) from one random platform to another. Arches leading from one section of the chamber to another were also turned on their sides and upside down. The space was vast in every direction, including, she gulped, down.

And all the way across the room, with no clear path to get to him, lay Aiden, wrapped up in a blanket and fast asleep.


	10. Escher Acrophobia

Jen blanched at the vast and Escher-esque chamber of stairs, platforms, and arches going in all directions. Running along the top of a wall that stayed horizontally parallel to the ground was one thing, but overcoming her acrophobia enough to handle something of this overwhelming magnitude was quite something else. Vertigo arose like a wave and caused her vision to tilt several degrees to the right. Even sitting down, her balance was thrown way off and she wound up leaning against the wall with her eyes closed until the feeling of being on a Tilt-a-Whirl passed.

Jareth grinned predatorily from a platform above Jen. If she couldn't even move through the room, then he would win by default. He began to wonder where within his kingdom she and Aiden might prefer to live. The goblins would be a bad influence on the lad, so the castle was unlikely to be preferred. Since Jen had gotten along so well with his mother a cottage nearby would probably do nicely. Unless that kiss in the ballroom had meant she _did_ want to live in the castle... Jareth's eyes returned to the subject of his musings and his mouth quirked with a hint of annoyance to see that she was trying to make progress.

Jen knew she was running against the clock to get her son back, so she forced her eyes open. Limiting her gaze to the area immediately in front of her feet, she carefully scooted forward to the set of stairs going down. Lacking a rail to cling to, she kept to the center of the stairs and rose to her feet to descend. At the limestone platform, she only allowed her eyes to follow the floor where it went forward about eight feet and then another staircase arose from there. Sighing, she kept moving and keeping her eyes away from the ledges.

Two more stairways, an arch, and a downward stairs landed her on a platform with a sideways arch. When she looked through it, Jareth stood on a sideways platform on the other side. A wave of vertigo hit, forcing Jen to close her eyes and breathe deeply for several minutes. _Aiden is waiting for me,_ she gave herself a pep talk. _There isn't much time left_.

"You don't _have_ to win you know," Jareth informed her.

"What happens if I lose?" she had to ask.

"I cannot tell you that," he frowned. "There are rules."

"Then I _must_ win," she insisted. "I _have_ to have my son back."

"Give up, Jen. You'll never navigate this chamber in time." Jareth absently started humming the tune that they'd danced to at the ball. He was once again feeling secure in impending victory as he turned and walked up the wall and through an arch, out of sight.

Jen tilted her head to one side as the tune reached her ears. She recognized it as the song she and Jareth had danced to from the ball and... was that _Lagan Love_? Her heart thrilled as the part of her that wanted the romance to be real resurfaced, insisting that the dance and kiss had meant something. She began singing the words as she sat on the thick, bench-like side of the sideways arch and swung her feet up so she was lying on it in an attempt to control her dizziness.

 _Where Lagan stream sings lullabies t_ _here grows a lily fair_

 _The twilight gleam is in her eye t_ _he night is on her hair_

 _And like a love-sick lennan-shee s_ _he has my heart in thrall_

 _Nor life I owe nor liberty f_ _or love is lord of all._

Suddenly, she slid down the side of the arch and her feet hit what had been a sideways platform as if gravity had turned 90 degrees. She experimentally took a step forward and found that it really had. Now the stairs she'd just climbed were sideways and Aiden was somewhere above her head. With a half smile, she considered her new options - two stairs going upwards but in different directions. Following one set with her eyes, she gasped to see Jareth standing on the platform at its pinnacle, arms folded and expression stern. He wordlessly turned and stepped over the ledge, his body swinging around like a hinge until he was walking on the platform's underside away from her.

Jen didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until he disappeared through an arch and she gasped. It rattled her that he looked almost angry: was he upset that she'd escaped the dungeon and was now so close to winning? Her stomach sank as her mind leapt straight to the agonizing but compelling conclusion that the ballroom had only been a distraction and he really _did_ want her to lose Aiden. Song forgotten, she trudged up the other stairs, grimly determined to get her baby and ignore the pain in her chest.

Despite his earlier resolve to be fair and noble, Jareth was upset that Jen was now so close to winning. _What if she leaves_? Again, he felt the conflict between duty and affection; despite the ballroom kiss and resulting desire to keep her, he was bound by his office to try and defeat Jen. Thus, to slow her down a tad, he rearranged some of the platforms and staircases, using a crystal to move them around like those in a castle he'd visited several times in Scotland. Since she'd figured out how to change her relative physical orientation and gravity, albeit accidentally, he felt like it was a fair thing to do.

Jen congratulated herself on getting the hang of the gravity switches, although several times she had to stop and control her vertigo when her gaze had accidentally strayed over an edge to gauge her path to Aiden. To get switched from a platform to a wall, she laid on the platform and put her feet on the wall. Gravity switched quickly and then she could stand up on the "wall," which had become a platform. Going 180 degrees as Jareth had, however, required more courage than she could summon, so she avoided it.

Jen paused to assess where she was relative to Aiden's platform, and found herself looking straight down at his platform from hers. The sight of the 20 feet or so of distance downward forced her to take a knee and grapple with dizziness yet again. She didn't think she had the guts to try stepping over an edge like Jareth had done but it appeared as if doing so was going to be the only way to get to a set of stairs that led to Aiden. Vertigo threatened from the back of her mind as she tried to drum up the courage to try it. Closing her eyes, she held the mental image of Jareth rotating around the edge of his platform and stepped forward.

Air wooshed around her, and if her feet hadn't remained in contact with a surface, Jen would have screamed in the belief that she was falling. As it was, she trembled and ducked her head to her chest, screwing her eyes tightly closed until the sensation of movement stopped. She tried to slow her breathing as she cautiously opened her eyes... to find herself standing on a platform just a few yards from Jareth. They were facing each other across a stone floor at what appeared to be the bottom of the Escher room. The clock on a nearby wall indicated she had barely two minutes remaining.

"I was winning," Jen's forehead wrinkled in confusion. Why had he magically whisked her off when she was so close? Was he so determined to make her unfairly lose?

"Were you really?" he tauntingly asked before shaking his head. "You never would have made it to him in the time left at the rate you were going."

"You don't know that," she protested. "All I had to do was swing around the ledge like you did and I could have gotten him. I had a plan."

"I have a much better plan," Jareth dismissed her words with a wave of his hand, which turned the gesture into the conjuring of a crystal ball. He contact-juggled it back and forth from one hand to the other before bringing it to a stop on the tips of his fingers.

"What is it?" Jen eyed the sphere critically.

"It's a crystal, nothing more," he casually informed her. "But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams."

She suspected Jareth was reciting from his script again since the intensity of his eyes were at odds with the nonchalance of his movements. He was trying to stall her. The ballroom _had_ been a dream after all. Her heart sank.

"Show me my dreams?" she wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I've all but won and all you can do is try to _show me my dreams?_ "

Her tone rose with her words and she stomped toward him, offended at the idea that a crystal was considered equal in value to a baby. Jareth slowly stepped back as Jen advanced, maintaining a few feet of distance between them. "I don't need a crystal ball to show me my dreams! I solved your labyrinth, fighting my way through every challenge you threw at me, and got all the way to this freaky castle to get my son back and you're offering me _dreams_?"

Jareth frowned at her vehemence. He was failing to convince her to stay and there were only seconds left. What was wrong? His words usually made the incipient champion at least pause and consider it. "Jen," he wrapped his voice around her name like a caress, "stop. Listen. Stay with me and you can _have_ your dreams. Everything you desire you will have..."

"Does that include my son?!" she cut him off.

"I can't say... the rules of the labyrinth..." he stammered. This conversation was going horribly awry. He proffered the crystal again, "Accept your dreams. Stay and let me rule you and you can have everything that you want."

"If you really think I'm going to selfishly trade my child for my dreams, you are dead wrong," Jen's eyes narrowed as she spit out her words. "And ' _rule'_ me? Absolutely not!"

"Oh? The experience you had in my ballroom need not become a fleeting memory to be recalled in times of regret," Jareth's countenance darkened and he stalked to within arm's length of her like a panther, purring her name. "It could become your life, Jen, and a far better one than the streets you left. Consider it: fine dining, parties, silk gowns... and myself. All you have to do is... choose to stay."

Jen failed to suppress the shudder of desire she felt at hearing her name on his lips, which stopped mere inches from her own. She tried to regroup around the thought of Aiden, "Choose to lose, you mean. If you want me to stay you're going to have to come and convince me in my world because I've won my son back and I'm going home."

Face aghast, Jareth reached for her as the clock chimed and the world around her shattered in a dizzying whirl of colors.

* * *

 **Author's PS:** I wrote the first part of this chapter based on the experience I had wherein I discovered my own acrophobia: on a tour way up inside the dome of the Iowa state capitol, standing on a too-narrow balcony encircling the inside of said dome, looking over a too-short railing straight down 5 stories all the way to the basement rotunda. Jen's reaction is closely modeled on mine, so I can certify that the vertigo symptoms that Jen experiences really _do_ happen (give us both a cozy underground cave vs. a high ledge any day!). Apart from that and singing, I have little in common with Jen. She is instead based on a friend of mine who is an amazing strong woman.

Just a little bit of this tale is left to be told... remember reviews = love and encouragement!


	11. Reality

**Author's Note:** _Mea maxima culpa_ for the loooooong delay getting this chapter out. I had a very bad case of writer's block brought on by nursing school. I also want to say, y'all are the most sweet, encouraging, and lovely people. Thank you for the messages! Love and hugs to each of you!

* * *

Jareth's hands closed on empty air and his knees buckled, banging harshly on the stone floor when they hit it. _She left... how can I bear this again?_ Tears spilled over and fell on his gloved hands where they rested palms-up on his bruised knees.

* * *

Psychedelic colors faded to pitch blackness. Jen groaned: _T_ _he dungeon again?_ It didn't sound or feel the same, however. There was no drip of water nor moist chill in the air. In fact, the air was dry and stale. Where had Jareth deposited her now? Was he so angry that he'd voided her victory and thrown her into a different confinement?

Aiden's muffled cry from somewhere nearby jolted Jen out of her abstraction.

"Aiden?!" Jen called out, lifting her hands and feeling forward with them. They immediately contacted a smooth wooden surface less than two feet in front of her. She felt around and found a knob, which opened the door to the tiny lavatory off the disused exam room at St. Kilda's Women's Shelter. The sight of the room from which she'd left Earth was completely disorienting after her time in the Labyrinth. A hiccupping cry from the little office brought her back, and she rushed to scoop Aiden off the cot.

"I'm so glad to see you!" she cuddled the infant close to her chest and peppered his head with kisses. "I bet you need a feeding, don't you? It's been a while."

Aiden calmed quickly once she had settled cross-legged on the cot and begun to nurse him. After he'd latched on, Jen leaned her head back against the wall. Unbidden, the mental image of Jareth's agonized expression as she exited his world came to her mind. Shaking her head firmly against the sadness that the image evoked, she decided to get grounded by singing.

 _Her welcome, like her love for me,_  
 _Is from her heart within:_  
 _Her warm kiss is felicity_  
 _That knows no taint of sin._  
 _And, when I stir my foot to go,_  
 _'Tis leaving love and light_  
 _To feel the wind of longing blow_  
 _From out the dark of night._

Like the image of Jareth, the song of their dance, _Lagan Love_ , had also come unbidden. It wasn't until the fourth verse that Jen realized tears were running down her cheeks. She looked down at Aiden and brushed one of her tears off his forehead.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the heartily nursing baby. "I didn't mean for us to wind up here again; I just didn't know whether I could keep you if I lost."

Aiden's only acknowledgement that she'd spoken was to waive his tiny fist and keep on suckling.

Jen scoffed at his indifference, "I guess you'll never remember where we went and what we'll miss out on, will you? You weren't the one who fell in love..."

After switching sides, Jen decided to sing the first not- _Lagan Love_ song that suggested itself.

 _Come over the hills, my bonnie Irish lass_  
 _Come over the hills to your darling_  
 _You choose the rose, love, and I'll make the vow_  
 _And I'll be your true love forever_

"Damn!" she dashed another tear from her cheek and stood up abruptly. Aiden paused his suckling in surprise, but quickly fell to again. "Why is every Irish song such a goddamn, miserable, tear-jerking, heart-stabbing dirge?!"

Looking out the window, she could see that the storm, which had been pounding at the time of her departure, had slowed to tiny droplets. It was still the middle of the night. She jerked back and gasped when she spotted the pale barn owl perched again on the fire escape, this time off to one side instead of directly in front of the window. The bird gazed back at her mournfully, as if the sight of her red eyes and tear-tracks caused it pain, before giving a low hoot and taking flight.

Once the owl had vanished around the corner of the next building, Jen returned to herself and noticed that Aiden was finished. She burped him and then curled up on the cot with the baby between her body and the wall. Pulling the scratchy blankets over them both, she remembered Mother Goose had said something important but the words refused to come to her exhausted mind.

With tears still sliding down her face, she fell asleep.

* * *

The throne room goblins were too busy generating mayhem with ale, spitballs, an armored pig, and a flock of chickens to notice that their ruler had returned from the Above and locked himself in the Escher room. They didn't hear the crashing of crystal spheres shattering into pieces against stone stairs, punctuated by occasional wails of misery. None of them were paying attention when he passed through into his personal chambers and collapsed in an exhausted pile on the bed.

* * *

A few hours later, Jen woke to Aiden's fussing. She sighed heavily, preferring to lay still under the weight of disappointment and loss, but her baby's needs overrode everything and she attended to them. Glancing out the windows, she noted that it was probably a short time before dawn despite the sky still being overcast. The owl was not on the fire escape.

Jen changed and fed Aiden, packed up their meager belongings, and went down to the dining hall for breakfast. She was the first one up besides the nuns, who looked like they'd only just become ready to serve their lumpy oatmeal and quartered oranges.

Minutes later, she was wandering aimlessly up and down the city sidewalks where she was jostled by crowds of people on their way to work. On the day prior she would have been filling out minimum-wage job applications, checking in with managers at places she'd dropped off completed applications (no phone or address meant face-to-face negotiating with potential employers) stopping at the soup kitchen with almost-edible soup, and browsing the public library. Today, however, her thoughts were still in the Labyrinth with Jareth's beautiful face behind her eyelids at every blink, and she could barely focus enough to look both ways before crossing the streets. As if matching her mood, the sky was grey with heavy clouds and fog.

At the corner of 86th and Burke, Jen waited for the light to change and glanced at a clothing store across the street. A sign in the window proclaimed, "More choices for you!" She stood there staring at the sign while the light changed and people surged around her on their way to busy workplaces. The light changed twice more before she crossed the street, mind churning.

Her feet carried her to the city park and down several randomly-chosen paths before she plunked down on a bench overlooking the foot-bridge dividing two halves of an enormous pond. Her backpack went on the ground between her feet, and Aiden on the ground, shielded from damp by one of the shelter's blankets. Swans paddling gracefully to and fro failed to distract Jen from her ruminations.

"Choices. That's what Mother Goose said. I have more choices than I know," Jen thought to herself before growing frustrated. "But it would sure as hell help if I knew what all the choices were or how to make them!"

A nearby birthday party attended by a group of squealing kindergarten-aged children forced itself into her attention. Jen frowned at it. The parents obviously had a great deal of money to be able to afford a massive cake, caterers, and actors to portray Disney characters for their little darlings. Enough money that they could probably do a lot for the homeless with the amount they'd spent on the fete.

A young woman dressed as Princess Jasmine was helping the birthday girl get ready for the cake, "Now close your eyes, make a wish, and blow out the candles to make it come true!"

"If only it were that simple," Jen thought. She straightened up suddenly, "What if it _is_ that simple? A wish got us into the Labyrinth to begin with... perhaps another wish will get us back?"

She picked up Aiden, glanced around to make sure no humans were within earshot, and whispered, "I wish we could return to the Labyrinth."

Nothing happened.

Crestfallen, Jen slumped forward to set Aiden back on the blanket and then buried her face in her hands, elbows braced on her knees.

"Now, why would someone so eager to escape my realm wish herself straight back into it?" a velveteen voice purred from behind the bench.

Jen bolted to her feet and spun around, "What?"

"I said..." he began, clasping his hands behind his back and half smiling at the ground as he stepped slowly around the bench toward her.

"I heard you, I just expected a different result," Jen explained.

"I imagine you did," he murmured, raising his eyes to hers. He paused two paces away, becoming as still as a statue as though afraid to scare her off.

"You came _here_." Jen noticed that he seemed even more pale than usual and his odd-colored eyes were reddish. Had he been crying?

He raised his eyebrows and one corner of his mouth at her statement of the blindingly obvious, "Well, you _did_ say, or rather shout, that I should, quote, 'come and convince you in your world.'"

Jen blushed at the memory of her hasty, angry words and glanced at the ground before looking back up at Jareth with a mischievous smile, "So, should I insist on making you work for it or just go on and say I'm convinced?"

With barely audible sigh of relief, he stepped closer and brushed a stray lock of hair back from her face, "Given that we are no longer constrained by the rules of solving the Labyrinth, precious thing, I am pleased to inform you that it is entirely up to you."

She tilted her cheek into his lingering hand for a second before straightening as a thought occurred to her, "I need to know: if I had stayed or lost or whatever, would I have kept my son and would he have stayed human?"

Jareth dropped his hand, "The dispensation of failed challenger and the wished away is up to my sole discretion... but I promise you that I would never separate you nor change him against your will."

"Oh," she blinked.

Jareth smiled before his expression turned rueful, "The rules of the Underground are somewhat... whimsical, shall we say, and seldom convenient."

Jen scoffed, "No kidding."

A short cry from Aiden, lying by their feet, made them both jump.

"Speaking of seldom convenient," Jareth murmured and scooped the baby up, patting his diaper. "Oh dear, it seems he is in need of a fresh nappy."

"Gimme, I'll do it," Jen held out her hands and Jareth passed Aiden over. While she managed the task, the Goblin King became still again and studied her face carefully, "Do you have any further business in this realm, or would you like to see the accommodation I rather presumptively... and hopefully... arranged for you?"

"I don't have any further business, and whatever the accommodation is, as long as it isn't overrun with goblins, I'm sure it'll be great," she smiled widely.

Jareth grasped the strap of her backpack and offered an arm, pleased that he had correctly predicted she wouldn't want goblins around the baby.

Jen took a deep breath, put a happily-cooing Aiden over one shoulder, and looped her free arm in Jareth's. "Let's go."

"As you have wished, my lady," Jareth twisted his hand, conjuring a crystal ball, and simply dropped it.

Upon impact, the sphere exploded in a shower of glitter. When it cleared, the trio had vanished.

* * *

 **Author's PS:** Finally done! Tell me what you want next - I do have some ideas for continuing Jen/Jareth and/or some other Labby AU type fun ;)

Thank you all again for your kindness and patience!


End file.
